Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sascha Morrell, Lecturer in English, Monash University

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 masterpiece of the Jazz Age, ushers readers into a corrupt but glittering world of cocktails, fast cars, stolen kisses and broken dreams. Status anxiety and conspicuous consumption generate a dazzling, often surreal poetry as the novel unfolds over a single summer in Long Island, New York. Beneath them trembles an ominous sense of malaise.

The novel is narrated in the first-person by Nick Carraway, a well-to-do Yale graduate from the Midwest, whose limited acquaintance with the millionaire Jay Gatsby is the reader’s only window onto the mysterious title character.

Fitzgerald’s editor Max Perkins complained to the author that Gatsby’s characterisation was too vague — that readers “can never quite focus upon him” — but this criticism missed the point. Jay Gatsby is not a man but “an unbroken series of successful gestures”, the product of an age — not unlike today’s culture of Instagrammable celebrity — in which identity is less a matter of innate qualities than of projecting an image.

Fittingly, the only God invoked in Gatsby appears on a billboard, in the famous image of oculist Dr J.T. Eckleberg’s gigantic blue eyes looking down on events in admonition.

The Great American novel

Although short in length, The Great Gatsby is widely recognised as an exemplar of that most elusive of literary phenomena: the Great American Novel. It achieves aesthetic greatness as a self-conscious tour de force, the product of Fitzgerald’s desire “to write something new – something extraordinary and beautiful and simple [and] intricately patterned” as he wrote in a 1922 letter to Perkins.

Its American-ness is likewise self-conscious: one of Fitzgerald’s working titles was Under the Red, White, and Blue, and Nick’s account of Gatsby’s rise and fall exposes deep flaws and fissures underlying the American Dream of unlimited social mobility.

Affirming the presence of class prejudice in the land where all men were supposedly created equal, Gatsby constructs a fragile romance across the gulf between old and new money — a gulf that separates Gatsby from his love interest Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan. Whereas Daisy and Tom come from established families, Gatsby lacks pedigree. The sources of his vast wealth are the subject of much speculation as his colossal mansion dwarfs those of other millionaires with freshly-minted fortunes.

Erosion of orthodoxies

Like many of his modernist contemporaries, Fitzgerald was fascinated by the erosion of old orthodoxies and traditional constraints in the aftermath of the first world war. For women, many taboos on dress and deportment were lifting, and Gatsby’s female characters play sports, dance wildly, and drink and smoke to excess — even in the midst of Prohibition. Yet for all its “spectroscopic gaiety”, such license brings little fulfilment.

In Chapter 1, the jaded Daisy expresses a sense of crippling ennui: “I think everything’s terrible anyhow […] And I KNOW. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything […] God, I’m sophisticated!”

Those with the right connections can afford to be amoral. When Daisy accidentally runs down Myrtle and flees the scene in Gatsby’s “monstrous” car, Tom manages a cover-up, shifting the blame onto Gatsby. As Nick reflects:

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness […] and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

Social mobility and the question of race

In the year of Gatsby’s publication, US President Calvin Coolidge announced “the chief business of the American people is business”, and in Fitzgerald’s novel it seems that “the pursuit of happiness” — that vague third term in the Declaration of Independence — has been reduced to the pursuit of material success.

Even romance and tragedy obey the logic of boom and bust. Nick reports in stockbroking language that Gatsby’s failure “temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men”, and Gatsby’s love for Daisy — a golden girl whose voice is “full of money” — is as deeply rooted in class and material aspirations as in sexual or personal attachment.

He desires not only Daisy but what winning her would symbolise. Indeed when the penniless Gatsby first met her, Daisy’s social elevation as a Kentucky debutante is said to have “increased her value in his eyes”.

Gatsby’s publication coincided with a high water mark of racism and xenophobia in the United States. The Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 introduced strict immigration quotas, while the revitalised Klu Klux Klan peaked at four million members in the same year. The novel has drawn criticism for its marginalisation of African Americans: one would hardly know from Fitzgerald’s novel that the Harlem Renaissance was underway. Fitzgerald is credited with naming the Jazz Age, but largely erases its origins.

Gatsby does lampoon racial bigotry through Tom Buchanan, who spouts “impassioned gibberish” about “the white race” being submerged. Fitzgerald alludes here to two influential eugenicist studies of the period, Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (1916) and Lothrop Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color (1920).

Nick calls Tom a “prig”, but he too associates race with class difference when the spectacle of “three modish negroes” driven by a “white chauffeur” prompts his reflection that this is a world where “anything can happen … even Gatsby”.

Sensuous prose

Fitzgerald’s prose is never more richly sensuous than when dealing with the strange alchemy of affluence, and the film adaptations by Jack Clayton (1974) and Baz Luhrmann (2013) struggle to do justice to Fitzgerald’s verbal pyrotechnics.

How can one portray “a scarcely human orchid of a woman” sitting in “ghostly celebrity” under a white plum tree, as a Hollywood actress is described? Like the cover of the novel’s first edition, Gatsby’s halls are “gaudy with primary colors”. His parties swell to “yellow cocktail music”, while a “green light” shines from Daisy’s dock across the bay.

In the novel’s closing paragraphs, Gatsby’s faith in this green light symbolises the vagueness of an American commitment to an endlessly receding future glory: “tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther”, Americans assure themselves, only to find themselves “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”.

Indeed, Gatsby’s plan for the future is precisely to “repeat the past” by recovering “some idea of himself that had gone into loving Daisy … I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before”.

Neither Gatsby’s ambitions or the nation’s can stand much scrutiny. Even before his fall, Gatsby’s “dream […] was already behind him” in “the dark fields of the republic”, leaving a “foul dust” in its wake.

Still, what Nick most admires in Gatsby is his “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life” and Fitzgerald implies that this “extraordinary gift for hope” might be the essence of the American Dream.

– ref. Guide to the classics: The Great Gatsby – http://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-great-gatsby-112508

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, Professor of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington

Public space is an essential component of democratic cities. Modelled on the agora of ancient Greece, it is a marketplace for the exchange of goods and ideas, a place where public affairs are debated and disputes resolved.

But historically, access was restricted. Famously, the classical agora was open only to the “free-born” and closed to women and slaves. Throughout history, just as access to public space is contentious, so are the rights of citizenship.

Union Square in New York is an important site in American labor history. In Design for the Crowd: Patriotism and Protest in Union Square, published this month, I explore how the history of this square, small in size but large in political importance, illustrates the shifting meanings and inherent tensions of public space as an epicenter of civic life.

Read more: How city squares can be public places of protest or centres of state control

A democratic landscape

Even in liberal democratic societies, the right to appear in public is mediated, dependent on local social, political and legal convention. In the U.S., for example, although freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are enshrined in the 18th-century Constitution, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that those freedoms were fully recognized in law.

Nearly 150 years ago, a modest park in the middle of New York City helped effect that change.

The 19th-century American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted is best known for Central Park, often referred to as a “democratic landscape.” Exploiting the natural features of its craggy site, it was designed as a city wilderness, a place of respite from the stresses of urban life intended for use by all New Yorkers.

But few know that Olmsted was also involved with the renovation of Union Square Park, two miles to the south. Smaller and more traditional in its design, this park was a democratic landscape in a different sense – a modern plaza for public meetings.

Early in the 20th century, contentious political rallies held in the plaza helped progressive social reformers argue for the legal protection of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

A people’s forum

Union Square was not planned as a public space in the political sense: enclosed by an iron fence, it was an amenity for the elite residents who lived close by.

The square gained a reputation as a site for political rallies during the Civil War. Following the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861, thousands of New Yorkers gathered around the park’s statue of George Washington for a demonstration urging national unity.

This statue, depicting Washington on horseback, was modelled on the classical statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Rome. At the end of the war, the citizens of New York raised funds for a matching statue of Abraham Lincoln, depicting him holding a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. As Union Square transformed from a residential neighbourhood to a busy commercial centre, these statues became popular focal points for public meetings.

In 1872, Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux redesigned Union Square. They tore down the fence, rejecting the focus on heroic figures and introducing instead a modern American version of the agora.

While the statues of Washington and Lincoln commemorated the military and political triumphs of the past, Olmsted and Vaux’s plaza was designed to facilitate democracy as an ongoing and active process.

Union Square became the place where working class New Yorkers, many of them recent immigrants, met to demand access to the benefits of American citizenship. Located between the sweatshops of Lower Manhattan and the department stores of Ladies’ Mile, it was the site of boisterous labor meetings, including the first Labor Day parade in 1882. The plaza became the place where the city’s emerging industrial working class demonstrated its political strength.

Read more: How Hong Kong protesters have been winning the battle for public space

Home of discontent

The unity and common purpose that characterized the first Labor Day parade did not last. Within a decade, radical groups splintered away from the mainstream wing of the labor movement. From 1890, socialists and anarchists began a new tradition, the celebration of May Day – and as this grew, Union Square acquired a reputation as a forum for anti-American ideas.

In response, police put extreme pressure on political meetings, denying permits, infiltrating the activities of meeting organisers, censoring speeches and breaking up demonstrations by force.

By the early 1890s, the mass rallies that regularly occurred at Union Square seemed to foreshadow complete social disintegration. In 1893, the anarchist Emma Goldman was arrested and charged with inciting a riot following an address to a mass meeting of the unemployed. Her trial was a national sensation.

In his defense, her lawyer Abraham Oakey Hall argued that Goldman had committed no crime. He quoted the section of the penal code that allowed for “peaceable assemblage of lawful purposes of protest and petition”. Though unsuccessful, this defense helped promote a new interpretation of the rights to freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment.

Goldman found little sympathy among the general population. However, her arrest fostered an alliance among radical political groups, labor organisations and progressive social reformers, leading to the formation of the non-partisan Free Speech League.

Prompted by Olmsted’s redesign, which offered New Yorkers a new kind of forum, political meetings held at Union Square helped change judicial opinion. After the turn of the 20th century, these meetings became key tests for the free speech movement, with liberal commentators decrying the suppression of political speech as a violation of the fundamental rights of American citizens.

Influenced by a progressive municipal administration, the police and the Parks Departments were increasingly protective of peaceful political rallies in the early 1900s.

This attitude anticipated new rulings in the Supreme Court after the first world war. In this sense Olmsted’s Union Square deserves to be remembered, just as much as Central Park, as a democratic landscape.

– ref. How New York’s Union Square helped shape free speech in the US – http://theconversation.com/how-new-yorks-union-square-helped-shape-free-speech-in-the-us-118677

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

The dust has well and truly settled on Scott Morrison’s surprise victory in this year’s federal election but opinion is still divided on exactly what happened in Queensland.

Why did Labor perform so poorly in the Sunshine State? Is Queensland an inherently conservative part of Australia? During the campaign, were southern-born politicians talking about a state they essentially didn’t understand? And – #Quexit jokes aside – is it time to redraw state lines in Australia, or even add new states?

Today on Trust Me, I’m An Expert, we bring you a discussion organised by The Conversation, recorded at Avid Reader bookshop in Brisbane and broadcast by Big Ideas on the ABC’s RN.

In this chat, political scientist Anne Tiernan from Griffith University speaks with the University of Southern Queensland’s John Cole, who has research expertise in the history of Australian federation, regional development and regional communities.

Host Paul Barclay began by asking them to name the biggest misconceptions floating around about Queensland.

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– ref. Trust Me, I’m An Expert: Queensland still mystifies too many politicians but its needs are surprisingly simple – http://theconversation.com/trust-me-im-an-expert-queensland-still-mystifies-too-many-politicians-but-its-needs-are-surprisingly-simple-122386

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Judi Lowe, PhD Candidate, Southern Cross University

A group of the world’s poorest fishermen are protecting endangered whale sharks from being finned alive at Oslob in the Philippines.

The fishermen have stopped fishing and turned to tourism, feeding whale sharks tiny amounts of krill to draw them closer to shore so tourists can snorkel or dive with them.

Oslob is the most reliable place in the world to swim with the massive fish. In calm waters, they come within 200m of the shore, and hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to see them. Former fishermen have gone from earning just a US$1.40 a day on average, to US$62 a day.

Read more: Whale sharks gather at a few specific locations around the world – now we know why

Our research involved investigating what effect the whale shark tourism has had on livelihoods and destructive fishing in the area. We found that Oslob is one of the world’s most surprising and successful alternative livelihood and conservation projects.

Destructive fishing

Illegal and destructive fishing, involving dynamite, cyanide, fish traps and drift gill nets, threatens endangered species and coral reefs throughout the Philippines.

Much of the rapidly growing population depend on fish as a key source of protein, and selling fish is an important part of many people’s income. As well as boats fishing illegally close to shore at night, fishermen use compressors and spears to dive for stingray, parrotfish and octopus. Even the smallest fish and crabs are taken. Catch is sold to tourist restaurants.

Despite legislation to protect whale sharks, they are still poached and finned alive, and caught as bycatch in trawl fisheries. “We have laws to protect whale sharks but they are still killed and slaughtered,” said the mayor of Oslob.

“Finning” is a particularly cruel practice: sharks’ fins are cut off and the shark is thrown back into the ocean, often alive, to die of suffocation. Fins are sold illegally to Taiwan for distribution in Southeast Asia. Big fins are highly prized for display outside shops and restaurants that sell shark fin products.

To protect the whale sharks on which people’s new tourism-based livelihoods depend, Oslob pays for sea patrols by volunteer sea wardens Bantay Dagat. Funding is also provided to manage five marine reserves and enforce fishery laws to stop destructive fishing along the 42km coastline. Villagers patrol the shore. “The enforcement of laws is very strict now,” said fisherman Bobong Lagaiho.

Destructive fishing has declined. Fish stocks and catch have increased and species such as mackerel are being caught for the first time in Tan-awan, the marine reserve where the whale sharks congregate.

The decline in destructive fishing, which in the Philippines can involve dynamite and cyanide, has also meant there are more non-endangered fish species for other fishers to catch.

Strong profits means strong conservation

The project in Oslob was designed by fishermen to provide an alternative to fishing at a time when they couldn’t catch enough to feed their families three meals a day, educate their children, or build houses strong enough to withstand typhoons.

“Now, our daughters go to school and we have concrete houses, so if there’s a typhoon we are no longer afraid. We are happy. We can treat our children to good food, unlike before,” said Carissa Jumaud, a fisherman’s wife.

Creating new forms of income is an essential part of reducing destructive fishing and overfishing in less developed countries. Conservation donors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in various projects, however research has found they rarely work once funding and technical expertise are withdrawn and can even have negative effects. In one example, micro-loans to fishermen in Indonesia, designed to finance new businesses, were used instead to buy more fishing equipment.

In contrast, Oslob earned US$18.4 million from ticket sales between 2012 and 2016, with 751,046 visitors. Fishermen went from earning around US$512 a year to, on average, US$22,699 each.

Now, they only fish in their spare time. These incredible results are the driving force behind protecting whale sharks and coral reefs. “Once you protect our whale sharks, it follows that we an have obligation to protect our coral reefs because whale sharks are dependant on them,” said the mayor.

Feeding whale sharks is controversial, and some western environmentalists have lobbied to shut Oslob down. However, a recent review of various studies on Oslob found there is little robust evidence that feeding small amount of krill harms the whale sharks or significantly changes their behaviour.

Read more: Are sharks being attacked by killer whales off Cape Town’s coast?

Oslob is that rare thing that conservation donors strive to achieve – a sustainable livelihoods project that actually changes the behaviour of fishermen. Their work now protects whale sharks, reduces reliance on fishing for income, reduces destructive fishing, and increases fish stocks – all while lifting fishermen and their families out of poverty. Oslob is a win-win for fishermen, whale sharks and coral reefs.

– ref. Poor Filipino fishermen are making millions protecting whale sharks – http://theconversation.com/poor-filipino-fishermen-are-making-millions-protecting-whale-sharks-122451

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Lesh, University of Sydney

Federation Square in Melbourne has been listed on the Victorian state heritage register just 17 years after its completion. The push for heritage status was provoked by the now-abandoned Apple store proposal for the city centre site. Heritage considerations will now guide this important public space, widely known as Fed Square, as it evolves now and over future generations.

The Victorian National Trust nominated the square to the Victorian Heritage Register in July 2018. This followed the Victorian government’s pre-Christmas announcement of previously secretive plans for the Apple store. The nomination led to interim heritage protections for Fed Square and Apple abandoned its proposal in April 2019.

Read more: For what shall it profit a city if it loses its civic soul? A plea to preserve Melbourne’s Fed Square

The register

Places and objects listed on the Victorian Heritage Register have legal protections. Fed Square joins around 2,500 other items, ranging from landscapes and gardens to buildings, memorials and artefacts.

To make a major change to a listed place, its owner and custodian must apply to Heritage Victoria for a permit.

Heritage Victoria will consider the cultural heritage impacts of any suggested changes. A public statement of significance will guide its decision-making. As long as Fed Square’s heritage significance is, on balance, retained, then the proposal can proceed.

Heritage Victoria has already considered changes to the square. While it had interim protections, works for the Melbourne Metro Tunnel and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) redevelopment were allowed.

After all, Fed Square is located above the historical Princes Bridge Station and a metro station enhances both the square and Melbourne. Similarly, ACMI must be kept up-to-date as a forward-looking, technology-orientated cultural institution.

The process

Australia has comprehensive heritage systems. That’s why it has taken over 18 months to reach the point of listing Fed Square.

The National Trust’s original nomination was extensive. It had input from National Trust expert committees and external groups, including the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, Melbourne Heritage Action and the Our City, Our Square campaign.

Heritage Victoria then conducted its own assessment of Fed Square before recommending that the independent Heritage Council list this place.

The Heritage Council held a public consultation. A record 754 submissions were received. Only three were against listing. A one-week hearing presided over by three council members followed in April 2019.

The Heritage Council then deliberated for four months. On August 26 2019 it made its final determination: to list Fed Square.

Read more: Heritage value is in the eye of the beholder: why Fed Square deserves protection

The criteria

Among supporters of the heritage listing, there were disagreements about which criteria applied.

There are eight state heritage criteria, of which three were found not to apply. Fed Square was not deemed to be an uncommon or instructive aspect of Victoria’s cultural history. Nor was it said to be specifically important for its design connection to LAB Architecture Studio.

That Fed Square is only 17 years old – relatively young for a heritage listing – was factored into the determination. A principle exists that, ordinarily, a generation should have passed before considering a listing.

This principle is, however, a flexible one. Other places listed soon after completion in Melbourne include the National Gallery of Victoria, Victorian Arts Centre and Shell House (1 Spring Street).

Although recognising that caution was necessary when listing youthful places, the Heritage Council sided with the Royal Historical Society, which wrote that Fed Square has within a generation become an “integral and essential part of the fabric of Melbourne life”.

Fed Square ultimately satisfied five state heritage criteria:

1. Historically, Fed Square is the culmination of Melbourne’s search for a public square and a grand gesture to Australian Federation.

2. It’s aesthetically valuable for its distinctive postmodern architecture.

3. It’s a technological achievement for the engineered decking over the rail lines.

4. It’s a living place with ongoing social importance as a meeting spot.

5. And the square is a public space.

Fed Square is now protected for its civic, cultural, social, historical, technological and aesthetic significance.

Read more: How the internet is reshaping World Heritage and our experience of it

Listing a public space

Whether Fed Square should be listed as a public space was particularly contentious. Many Melburnians might well think it’s primarily important as a public gathering place, but that view does not automatically lead to heritage protections.

Fed Square management sought to quash the idea that it was a public square. The argument was two-fold: the square is not really a public space because cultural exchange and commercial tenants are also central to this place; and public squares should not be heritage listed at all. Both of these arguments were rejected.

The Heritage Council found Fed Square is a pre-eminent public space. Perhaps the cinemas and galleries and even the cafes and restaurants enhance it. Establishing an important precedent, Fed Square was specifically identified as a “notable example” of a public square for its size, civic prominence and cultural activities.

Read more: New minister for public spaces is welcome – now here are ten priorities for action

As visitors enter Fed Square by walking up the steps from the Yarra River or Flinders Street Station, in front of the digital screen, the civic square itself – intact, legible and enclosed – has been explicitly protected.

The future

Over the last two decades, Fed Square has become the civic heart of Melbourne. It was only a question of time before it would be recognised as a listed heritage place.

The misconceived Apple store simply created a sense of urgency. The Apple proposal was based on the incongruous idea that Fed Square should be a commercial hub, a notion that must be dismissed in favour of community, civic and cultural objectives for this place.

At the moment, the custodians of Fed Square – its management and the Victorian government – have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the next stage of this place.

A conservation management plan will be prepared based on the heritage listing. Heritage thinking should also inform the current Fed Square review. You can have your say on Victoria Engage until the end of September.

The heritage system has worked at Fed Square by recognising the breadth of associations between people and this place. As the square continues to evolve, its role as Melbourne’s foremost public space will hopefully be assured.

– ref. How can a 17-year-old place gain heritage status? What this means for Melbourne’s Fed Square – http://theconversation.com/how-can-a-17-year-old-place-gain-heritage-status-what-this-means-for-melbournes-fed-square-122455

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Arvanitakis, Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis, Western Sydney University

For most of us, it is easy to pass judgement on others while finding it difficult to reflect on ourselves.

Diversity Arts Australia recently undertook a research project, Shifting the Balance, with the assistance of Western Sydney University and BYP Group. We investigated representation of culturally and/or linguistically diverse (CALD) Australians in leadership positions within our major arts, screen and cultural organisations.

The focus was on CALD rather than other measures because we wanted to reflect the Australian Human Rights Commission’s classification of cultural backgrounds. Where participants self-identified as First Nations people we recorded this data but we did not include it in this report (we aim to expand the focus in collaboration at a future date).

We began with an analysis of the publicly available biographical information about board chairs and members, CEOs, creative directors, senior executives and award panel judges from 200 major cultural organisations, awards and government bodies. These findings were then returned to these organisations to confirm or review the data.

We made it clear the information would be non-identifiable – our aim, after all, is to identify issues, not attack organisations.

It did not take long for some of our funders to call us about concerns that had been raised with them regarding our research.

A number of organisations and individuals told us they would not participate. We were accused of not understanding the complexity of the organisations or, indeed, diversity.

One respondent explained to us that, because their spouse was ethnically Chinese, they did not see themselves as “Anglo-Australian”. Privately, I was even told by one potential funder that migrant populations did not prioritise “the arts” – so such research was a waste of time.

This sort of sensitivity demonstrates exactly why we need this research: many Australians are not aware of how far their misunderstanding of lack of diversity extends.

Despite such reactions, we made the decision to persist with the research. When organisations refused to participate, we thanked them for their consideration, removed them from our database and replaced them with alternative ones.

Overwhelmingly non-migrant

The findings were staggering. Despite public commitments to diversity, leaders, directors and board members of Australia’s major cultural bodies are overwhelmingly from non-migrant backgrounds.

Less than half of our nation’s museums, music and opera companies, screen organisations and theatre companies have any representatives from diverse cultural or linguistic heritage among their leadership teams.

Less than 10% of artistic directors come from culturally diverse backgrounds.

The literary and publishing industry had the highest CALD representation among leaders, 14%. This figure in theatre, dance and stage was just 5% – mirroring numbers found by the Australian Human Rights Commission when looking at the broader corporate sector.

A progressive sector?

Australia’s arts sector sees itself – and is seen by others – as progressive and inclusive. So understanding why it falls short in actual representation is complex.

England’s primary art funding body, Arts Council England, has released an annual diversity report since 2016. In the introduction to this year’s report, chair Nicholas Serota noted “in some respects there are improvements; in others we are still treading water”.

Writing on this for the Guardian, Clive Nwonka, a fellow at the London School of Economics, argued that:

A combination of industries placing economic interests over social interests, resistance and disinterest from stakeholders, and poorly conceptualised initiatives left diversity in the wilderness. […] The sector became littered with the corpses of failed diversity schemes.

While it is difficult to compare the experience of different nations, the response from our research shows similar resistance in some sections of the community.

A culture of resistance

Australia has a history of separating “ethnic art” from the mainstream arts community. Non-English language companies peaked in the late 1980s, with companies such as the Greek-language Filiki Players in Melbourne and the Italian-language Doppio Teatro in Adelaide.

Despite almost 50% of Australians having at least one parent born overseas, this separation between “mainstream” and “ethnic” art has continued.

Through many symposium and discussion forums, we confirmed many artists and creatives felt major organisations often saw diversity as the domain of minor organisations.

This bias is likely to be unconscious. Recognition of such bias within orchestras saw the introduction of “blind auditions”, which have increased the representation of female musicians in top orchestras from 5% in 1970 to over 30% today.

What can be done?

The arts are there to tell the stories that capture the rich tapestry of our nation – and to do this, we must seek out artists and artistic leaders that reflect this diversity.

The cultural and screen sectors must set targets, design, and implement diversity inclusion plans. These should not be undertaken via a tick-the box-training session, but progressive and ongoing strategies that are embedded into the organisation.

Read more: The Heights – at last, a credible Australian working-class soap

We need strong arts policy (Australia doesn’t have a national arts policy at all) with diversity at its core.

As in the UK, funding bodies must tie funding to meeting minimum diversity targets, ensuring organisations reflect on what it means to tell an Australian story.

The arts act as a mirror to who we are. If the arts community simply reflects on Australia of a bygone era we fail to acknowledge our complexity, exclude most Australians and lack authenticity.

Finally, while 22 organisations refused to participate in our research, and many did not respond, we must remember 49% did send through their data – giving us the potential for an arts and screen community that really reflects Australia.

– ref. Australia’s art institutions don’t reflect our diversity: it’s time to change that – http://theconversation.com/australias-art-institutions-dont-reflect-our-diversity-its-time-to-change-that-122308

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Associate Professor in Law, University of Technology Sydney

As the inquest begins into the death in custody of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, who fell asleep on a train in Victoria before she was arrested for public intoxication, questions are being asked about what it takes to stop Aboriginal people dying in custody.

Earlier this month was the fifth anniversary of the death of Ms Dhu, a young Yamatji woman who died after four days in South Hedland police lockup. The Western Australian coroner said:

In her final hours she was unable to have the comfort of the presence of her loved ones, and was in the care of a number of police officers who disregarded her welfare and her right to humane and dignified treatment.

And in 2016, Wiradjuri mother Rebecca Maher died in custody after police failed to conduct any physical checks for her safety or take her to hospital, where expert evidence indicated she could have survived.

Read more: Deaths in custody: 25 years after the royal commission, we’ve gone backwards

A recent analysis found Australia’s incarceration rate is sitting at 0.22%, the highest it’s been since 1899, with Indigenous people making up 28% of those in prison. Tanya Day, Ms Dhu and Rebecca Maher are among the 400 people who have died in custody, more than 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

But how many deaths could have been avoided?

In Ms Dhu and Maher’s inquests, the families believed access to a custody notification service would have been an important check in the absence of police care.

The custody notification service is a 24/7 “telephone hotline” for Aboriginal people to receive legal advice and a welfare check. The Royal Commission recommended it be

mandatory for Aboriginal Legal Services to be notified upon the arrest or detention of any Aboriginal person.

A custody notification service is necessary as a health and legal line, including to alert police when a person needs medical help and make crucial referrals to community-controlled health and legal services.

But custody notification services aren’t accessible to people in protective custody, such as for intoxication.

Read more: Ms Dhu coronial findings show importance of teaching doctors and nurses about unconscious bias

And the services operate inconsistently across Australia, on short-term funding arrangements. Often they do not enable a conversation between the person in custody and the person on the line. Generally, the police are the ones who contact the service.

If Aboriginal deaths are to be prevented, the custody notification service needs to be funded nationally and implemented locally. It must encompass a well-being and legal service to Aboriginal people in police custody, a direct line to the Aboriginal person in custody and a mechanism for police accountability.

Northern Territory: too little and too late

In the Northern Territory, protective custody was introduced to decriminalise intoxication. But it has led to police stations becoming known as “drunk tanks” exclusively for Aboriginal people.

Between 2003 and 2012, eight Aboriginal men and women died in the Northern Territory while in, or associated with, protective custody.

The Northern Territory government set down regulations for a custody notification service only last month – the last Australian jurisdiction to commit to such a service.

While the regulations provide little detail, they do have two notable exclusions: protective custody and paperless arrests.

The regime of paperless arrests allows police to take a person into custody where they would otherwise receive an on-the-spot fine.

Read more: Paperless arrests are a sure-fire trigger for more deaths in custody

Under these laws, Warlpiri artist and children’s book illustrator Kumunjayi Langdon died on a concrete bench in police lockup in Darwin in 2015 from treatable heart disease.

Both paperless arrests and protective custody already provide fewer procedural protections than arrests for an offence that result in charges. Removing access to the custody notification service for Aboriginal people arrested under these laws is another denial of safeguards.

New South Wales is leading by example

New South Wales led the way with its state-wide custody notification service, implemented in 2007. It is set apart from many other custody notification services in Australia by providing direct contact with the person in custody.

Like the NT and most other Australian jurisdictions, NSW police have the power to detain an intoxicated person for their own protection.

Read more: Why Aboriginal voices need to be front and centre in the disability Royal Commission

Maher died in custody in 2016 within five hours of being held in protective custody for intoxication, and wasn’t given access to the custody notification service.

She was held under part 16 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (LEPRA), which allows for the detention of intoxicated people. It means she didn’t receive the benefit of a notification to the Aboriginal Legal Services given to those arrested under part 9 of the same law.

In July 2019, the NSW coroner in the inquest into Maher’s death identified the custody notification service was too narrow in its application.

She recommended that an Aboriginal person detained under part 16 of LEPRA is given the same access to the service as an Aboriginal person held under part 9, and that the service should be sufficiently funded to extend to these people.

What’s more, the federal government is working with the NSW government to ensure the custody notification service is funded so it “extends to protective custody”.

Read more: We need evidence-based law reform to reduce rates of Indigenous incarceration

The custody notification service needs to be rolled out to protective custody across the nation to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody to have a direct line to the service.

For this service to effectively stop deaths in police custody, it must be fully-funded, consistently-funded and available to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody, not only those arrested.

– ref. Legal and welfare checks should be extended to save Aboriginal lives in custody – http://theconversation.com/legal-and-welfare-checks-should-be-extended-to-save-aboriginal-lives-in-custody-121814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is a step closer to securing the expulsion of rogue union leader John Setka from the ALP, although a court judgment has highlighted possible internal party complications.

The Supreme Court of Victoria on Tuesday dismissed the construction union boss’s bid to prevent the Labor party from expelling him.

Judge Peter Riordan said the legitimacy of the motion to expel Setka was not within the court’s jurisdiction.

“The court does not interfere with internal decisions of voluntary unincorporated associations unless it is protecting or enforcing a contractual or other right recognised in law or equity,” the judge said.

But he said that in case he was wrong and the court had jurisdiction, he had determined that the powers of the ALP national executive to expel a member “are subject to compliance with the preconditions set out” in the rules of the ALP’s Victorian branch.

Setka’s lawyers had argued that the party’s power of expulsion lay with its Victorian branch, and the national executive therefore could not expel him.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: The battle to stare down the defiant John Setka

A spokesperson for Albanese immediately repeated the case for expulsion:

While we are waiting to read the full judgement, we welcome the decision.

John Setka has been convicted by the court of harassment against a woman.

He has also been convicted of breaching a Family Violence Intervention Order. He denigrated the work of anti-violence campaigner Rosie Batty.

There is no place in the Labor Party for somebody who treats women with the contempt Mr Setka has shown.

The numbers are there on the ALP national executive to expel Setka. But Labor sources said it was uncertain whether Setka could launch fresh legal action.

Read more: CFMMEU’s John Setka set to be expelled from ALP after attack on Rosie Batty

Albanese’s move against Setka was initially triggered by claims he had denigrated Batty in comments at an internal union meeting – claims that were then contested – but he also broadened the grounds for expulsion to Setka’s general record of bad behaviour.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus urged Setka to quit his union post for the good of the movement, but he refused.

Setka has strong backing from his union rank and file. The Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has warned if Setka is expelled “all financial and in-kind support to the ALP [would cease] immediately from the Victorian branch of the CFMEU”.

– ref. Albanese one step closer in long march towards John Setka’s expulsion – http://theconversation.com/albanese-one-step-closer-in-long-march-towards-john-setkas-expulsion-122457

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The Morrison government has declared that Australian citizen and writer Dr Yang Hengjun has not been spying for Australia.

Yang, 54, who has been incarcerated by the Chinese for more than seven months, was formally arrested last Friday on suspicion of espionage.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne, asked by The Conversation whether Yang had been spying for Australia, said “there is no basis for any allegation Dr Yang was spying for the Australian government”.

The Chinese have not specified who Yang is alleged to have been spying on behalf of.

A one-time official in the Chinese foreign ministry, Yang, who moved to Australia in 1999, has been an outspoken democracy advocate.

His charging will inject further tension into the already strained relationship between Australia and China.

In a strong statement, Payne said the government was “very concerned and disappointed”.

“Dr Yang has been held in Beijing in harsh conditions without charge for more than seven months. Since that time, China has not explained the reasons for Dr Yang’s detention, nor has it allowed him access to his lawyers or family visits,” Payne said.

“I have discussed this twice with China’s Foreign Minister, State Councilor Wang Yi, and have written to him three times, stating my concerns, and those of the Australian government and people. We have serious concerns for Dr Yang’s welfare, and about the conditions under which he is being been held. We have expressed these in clear terms to the Chinese authorities.”

Read more: Why ‘Democracy peddler’ Yang Hengjun has been detained in China and why he must be released

Payne said Australia expected that “basic standards of justice and procedural fairness” were met.

“If Dr Yang is being held for his political beliefs, he should be released. We expect Dr Yang to be treated in accordance with international human rights law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with special attention to those provisions that prohibit torture and inhumane treatment, guard against arbitrary detention and that protect the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

Consular officials are due to visit Yang immediately.

Payne said she would “continue to advocate strongly on behalf of Dr Yang to ensure a satisfactory explanation of the basis for his arrest, that he is treated humanely and that he is allowed to return home”.

Yang, who was living in the United States and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, flew to China with his wife and child in January. He was detained at once. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that month that he was suspected of “engaging in criminal acts that endangered China’s national security”.

– ref. Foreign Minister Marise Payne says Yang Hengjun is not Australian spy – http://theconversation.com/foreign-minister-marise-payne-says-yang-hengjun-is-not-australian-spy-122453

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Slevin, Adjunct Professor, School of Psychology, Curtin University and College of Health and Medicine, Australian National University

Much loved former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, who died last week from leukaemia, has talked about the possible link between his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam and his various cancers.

Mr Fischer had reportedly been dealing with cancer for the past ten years, starting with bladder cancer, then prostate cancer, two melanomas, and finally, a blood cancer called acute myeloid leukaemia.

Read more: Tim Fischer – a man of courage and loyalty – dies from cancer

While his is a classic instance of the challenge in definitively linking a specific exposure to a specific cancer, Mr Fischer told the ABC TV’s Australian Story last year, “at least one specialist has suggested my immunity broke down a lot more quickly as a direct consequence” of exposure to Agent Orange.

Fischer’s death is a timely reminder of the long-term implications of Agent Orange to our Vietnam veterans and the many other hazards to which defence force personnel, and other Australian workers, are exposed.

What is Agent Orange and how does it affect your health?

Agent Orange was a mixture of two herbicides, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, and kerosene or diesel fuel. Each herbicide contained small amounts of dioxin, a highly toxic and carcinogenic compound.

US aerial spraying of jungle aimed to expose Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops who sheltered under the jungle’s thick canopy. It also sought to destroy “the enemy’s” food crops.

Some 60,000 Australians served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975. There were 521 Australian deaths and 3,000 wounded in the conflict. But the damage did not stop there.

Concerns about the effect of Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans emerged in the 1970s. A 1985 Australian Royal Commission recognised Agent Orange’s adverse health effects but could not find a definitive link to cancer in the veterans. It did, however, leave the door open to further investigation.

In 1991, the United States congress passed the Agent Orange Act, which required a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, updated every two years, of Agent Orange’s health effects.

The most recent report from 2018, the 11th in the series, lists diseases that are clearly associated with exposure to this herbicidal chemical cocktail. This includes cancers such as soft tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, as well as hypertension (high blood pressure).

Another 12 conditions including prostate and bladder cancer have “limited or suggestive evidence of association” with Agent Orange.

Read more: What can go wrong in the blood? A brief overview of bleeding, clotting and cancer

The US Department of Veterans Affairs also recognises more than 18 birth defects among the children of mothers who served in the military in Vietnam. These conditions have been linked to the birth mother’s service in Vietnam and not specifically to exposure to Agent Orange or a specific component of it.

Exposure to cancer-causing agents at work

Too many Australians are exposed to to cancer- and other disease-causing agents at work.

But the longer the time between exposure and the occurrence of a related health problem, the harder it is to establish any causation link, and then to respond constructively.

When it comes to occupational cancers more broadly, we have taken action on asbestos, but more cases of cancer and lung disease are likely to emerge in future.

Read more: Why the health threat from asbestos is not a thing of the past

There is much more work to be done on other occupational health issues such as silica dust which can enter the lungs of joiners making kitchen benchtops from stone, causing silicosis, a type of lung disease.

Read more: Explainer: what is silicosis and why is this old lung disease making a comeback?

Specific hazards for defence personnel

Defence force personnel are exposed to many more hazards in the course of their employment.

Death in battle, or in the course of training, are stark realities.

Exposure to physical, chemical and biological hazards is also greater than it is, on average, in civilian life.

Returned service personnel must also face the prospect of long-term health problems from chemical exposure in their distant past, such as from nuclear radiation during nuclear weapons testing.

Nuclear radiation is known to cause cancer; Australian defence force and related staff were measurably exposed during the conduct of these tests from 1952 to 1965.

Tim Fischer’s commitment to help those who have, or may have, suffered long-term health consequences of their defence force experience should drive our efforts to openly, systematically and fairly address these issues.

– ref. What Tim Fischer’s cancer tells us about the impact of Agent Orange on other Vietnam veterans – http://theconversation.com/what-tim-fischers-cancer-tells-us-about-the-impact-of-agent-orange-on-other-vietnam-veterans-122273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Spry, Lecturer in Marketing, RMIT University

When Alan Jones encouraged Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “shove a sock down” the throat of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, it was not the first time he launched a broadside and lost advertisers.

This time, 52 advertisers have so far withdrawn from Jones’ 2GB radio programme, buoyed by social media campaigns by activist groups publicising a list of boycotting advertisers as well as naming and shaming those who remain, such as Virgin Australia.

Read more: It will be money, not morality, that finally turns the tide on Alan Jones

Messing with the wrong person

When asked about Jones’ comment on a television morning news programme, Ardern said she didn’t engage and does not intend to respond because she doesn’t “have an opinion on every single person who says something about me.”

Ardern has risen to worldwide recognition, particularly following her empathetic response to the terror attacks in Christchurch. Her fans have been quick to call out slurs on her character such as Jones’ comments, as well as any associated brands.

In today’s interconnected and increasingly more accessible world, brands are recognising the potential damage of not responding to an incident like this. Brands are actually responding strategically by capitalising on the press attention, visibly and loudly disassociating themselves from negative events or scandals.

It is not primarily about the money. Between at least seven of the boycotting brands, the money they put towards Jones’ 2GB radio show accounts for less than 1% of their media budget. But the long-term reputational and financial risk avoided by dissociating from Alan Jones is significant.

A toxic affiliation, even when that accounts for only a small piece of the marketing budget and media exposure pie, can have disastrous effects on a brand.

When brands partner

Like Jacinda Ardern, Alan Jones is a brand. People are aware of who he is and his name evokes certain associations (rightwing, shock jock). When companies choose to buy advertising space within his talk show, they are engaging in a brand partnership.

Once partnered, brands gain exposure to each other’s audiences and trigger the transfer of associations between brands (for example, George Clooney’s global status can be transferred to an instant coffee brand). But when one brand attracts bad publicity, it is not the only one that suffers damage to their image. All affiliated brands are at risk.

Tiger Woods lost US$22 million in endorsement and sponsorship contracts after his 2009 sex scandal. Accenture, AT&T and Gatorade dropped Tiger Woods, and the scandal cost shareholders of brands such as Nike and Gatorade US$12 billion. Similarly, Sandpapergate saw some major sponsors cutting ties with the Australian cricket team in 2018 for fear of the negative associations with cheating that accompanied the ball tampering incident.

Partnerships mean that the brands involved are not completely in charge of their narrative. People encounter brands in various ways and each encounter shapes perceptions, despite not being curated by the brand.

While boycotting advertisers such as ME Bank, Chemist Warehouse, Koala and Volkswagen knew that audiences would be exposed to their brand within Alan Jones’ radio show, they can’t control what else is happening at that time and what they are being linked to by virtue of association.

Turning a negative into a double positive

Advertisers have not only mitigated the spillover of misogynistic and violent connotations to their images, they’ve used this boycott as an opportunity to drive up brand sentiment. Walking away from Alan Jones not only firewalls them from his brand of outrage but signals their brand as principled, virtuous and willing to take a stand.

The incident has also highlighted the fact that these companies actually sponsored the show in the first place – a show which was known for its controversial viewpoints before this particular incident. Paradoxically, righting this wrong by boycotting could enhance satisfaction with these companies more than if they had never advertised with the programme in the first place.

This is particularly meaningful in a climate where consumers want to buy from brands that share their own values and act on social and political issues. Yet consumers discern between brands that back up their messages through practice. They’re looking for brands to “walk the talk”.

Read more: Woke washing: what happens when marketing communications don’t match corporate practice

Credibility based on attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness is key.

A recognisable brand is one of the most lucrative assets on a company’s books. The Apple brand, for example, is worth US$214 billion. Partnering with an entity with characteristics that boost a brand’s credibility will also increase brand equity, which captures the value of the brand name alone.

Brand equity starts with people’s knowledge of the brand – what comes to mind when they hear the name. By cutting ties with 2GB, the boycotting companies have made sure it’s not Alan Jones, sock-shoving and misogyny.

– ref. Shoving a sock in it is not the answer. Have advertisers called time on Alan Jones? – http://theconversation.com/shoving-a-sock-in-it-is-not-the-answer-have-advertisers-called-time-on-alan-jones-122367

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Bond University

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au.

Why do our toes and fingers get wrinkly in the bath? – Jade, aged almost 4.

Thanks for your question, Jade.

The truth is scientists aren’t exactly sure why our fingers and toes get wrinkly in the bath.

Here’s what we do know:

• it happens when we stay in the bath for more than about five minutes, but can happen faster if the water is hotter. In warm water (about 40 degrees Celsius), the skin on your hands and feet can wrinkle in only 3.5 minutes
• it also happens to macaque monkeys
• it only happens on our hands and feet. The rest of our skin doesn’t tend to wrinkle in this way.

We do know the water doesn’t just leak into our fingers all by itself. The body actually works to let the water past the first few layers of skin. It has something to do with our nervous system, the network of “wires” that help pass messages from your brain to various parts of your body.

In fact, if you cut or damage certain nerves, the skin on hands or feet won’t wrinkle when wet.

And we also know the wrinkling has something to do with blood vessels shrinking. Blood vessels are the tiny pipes that carry blood around your body. Veins, arteries and capillaries are all types of blood vessels.

So we have some clues about how the skin wrinkles, but no clear answer on why.

Even though we don’t really understand why this wrinkling happens, there are some theories. Theories means scientists have come up with their best guesses.

Good grip in a slippery situation?

Have you found things that are wet are easier to pick up when your hands are wrinkly?

Some scientists think wrinkling may give us better grip in water. This makes it easier for us to touch and hold wet objects with our hands. Our toes also wrinkle in water, and so maybe this helps us safely walk on wet surfaces.

A very long time ago, this would have helped our ancestors collect food from underwater, especially in fast-flowing water like you might see in a creek or river.

However, some scientists tested this idea, and found having wrinkled fingers often did not help. So maybe this isn’t the answer after all.

Why aren’t our fingers always wrinkly?

If there are some good things to do with wrinkly fingers and toes, why aren’t they always this way?

Well, wrinkles might make it easier for our skin to get injured or make it harder to feel sensations. And if your feet are wet and wrinkly all the time you might get a painful and dangerous condition called trench foot.

So maybe wrinkly hands and feet aren’t something you want all the time.

Your question is a very interesting one that scientists still wonder about. Maybe one day you will find the answer.

– ref. Curious Kids: why do our toes and fingers get wrinkly in the bath? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-our-toes-and-fingers-get-wrinkly-in-the-bath-120229

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Tattersall, Postdoc in Urban Geography and Research Lead at Sydney Policy Lab. Host of ChangeMakers Podcast., University of Sydney

The Hong Kong protest movement is not deescalating – nor will it. Having battled for 12 weeks, this multi-million-person movement has lasted much longer than the unsuccessful 79-day Umbrella protests in 2014.

This is because protesters believe this is their last chance to protect the “one country, two systems” model that came into effect after Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China and also expand the scope of the democracy in the city.

Yet, despite the enormous, peaceful marches, along with the more militant protesters who have shut down the airport and engaged in repeated battles with police, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has remained unmoved.

This dynamic is hard for Western governments to understand. If these protests were happening in a democratic society, the government would likely seek to enter into concession bargaining with the protesters, knowing that compromise and negotiation are core strategies for deescalating tensions.

Read more: Trust Me, I’m An Expert: Why the Hong Kong protesters feel they have nothing to lose

This has not happened in Hong Kong. At her regular Friday press conferences, Lam neither acknowledges nor engages in any discussions about the protesters’ five key demands, including the formal withdrawal of the extradition bill that initially sparked the protests back in June.

It raises two questions – why isn’t this movement slowing down, and what will Lam, or Beijing, eventually do in response?

A resilient movement

The Hong Kong protesters practice a strategy called “being water”. The phrase was first used by martial arts star Bruce Lee, and it means building a movement that is fluid.

As one protest leader described it to me in Hong Kong,

we flow to where the needs or energy lies, and leave where it’s not working.

This is the approach behind the apparently spontaneous protests all over the city – from the airport, to the New Territories, to Hong Kong Island. But they aren’t spontaneous at all – the ideas for the demonstrations are deliberated on LIHKG, a Reddit-style website where anyone can post an idea and have it debated and voted up or down by other protesters.

The movement has great solidarity across it, despite the presence of sometimes militant tactics. This, too, is hard to understand in the West, as most assume the radically different tactics by the largely older, more peaceful weekend protesters and the younger, more militant faction is likely to lead to a split.

Read more: The Hong Kong protesters have turned militant and more strategic – and this unnerves Beijing

What many don’t see is that the peaceful wing and the more militant youthful wing deeply respect each other’s roles. During the 1.7 million-person march on August 18, for instance, some suggested there should be an occupation of police headquarters. Yet, this idea was voted down on LIHKG because most said it would undermine the peaceful role the rally was designed to serve.

There are some tensions, of course. During Sunday’s clashes with police, there was some criticism after a photo emerged of a protester brandishing a BB gun. But overall, the movement has largely stuck together.

This is exactly what the protesters didn’t do during Umbrella. When a more militant arm emerged during those protests, it was criticised by the older generation. The split meant that the movement was incapable of making decisions, including negotiating an end to the occupation. The movement became isolated, leaving it vulnerable to attack. It lost support from the Hong Kong people.

The other cohesive element this time around is the recognition that the “one country, two systems” model that ensures certain rights and freedoms for Hong Kong residents until 2047 is increasingly under threat.

While previous generations of Hong Kong democratic leaders drew their energy from collective anger over the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the current generation fears living as adults within the People’s Republic of China.

The 2047 timeline has been brought forward to 2019, and the fight for a democratic Hong Kong is now.

Lam’s reluctance to negotiate

So what does Carrie Lam – and her backers in Beijing – do in response to that?

Last week, Lam instigated a so-called “listening process”. But protesters accused her of being disingenuous. Her first act involved listening to her allies and members of her cabinet. Even so, several pro-Beijing supporters suggested she withdraw the extradition bill and consider an inquiry into accusations of police brutality.

But Lam hasn’t shifted. And this begs the question – what autonomy does she have? If Hong Kong has its own “separate system”, then negotiations with the protesters on questions related to that system should be seen as an important political step.

Many protesters fear the lack of momentum on negotiations reflects the extent to which Hong Kong’s system is under threat. And this, in turn, affirms the need to continue protesting.

Instead of prioritising real dialogue, the government’s response has been an escalation of force. On Sunday, we saw water cannons fired into crowds for the first time and live ammunition shot into the air. Beijing has also amassed large convoys of military vehicles at the border in recent weeks.

Is another Tiananmen in the offing?

The internet is wild with rumours about “another Tiananmen”. And, in many ways, that is the purpose of the tanks on the border. Their presence provokes great fear. It raises the stakes for any protester.

This kind of fear also circulated during the Umbrella movement. I interviewed many protest leaders back then who said they went to the streets prepared to die for Hong Kong.

That said, a military incursion in a place as large as Hong Kong would be gravely difficult. Making it even more challenging is the fact it is hard to shoot water, which is akin to taking aim at a guerrilla army instead of people standing in a square.

Read more: Beijing is moving to stamp out the Hong Kong protests – but it may have already lost the city for good

And, it’s important to remember that even the military crackdown on the Tiananmen protesters was a process. First, the government implemented curfews in late April in 1989, followed by martial law in late May. The tanks were finally deployed on June 4.

A more likely response from the government in Hong Kong is an intensification of the police response to the protesters. There will be more water cannons, more rubber bullets. Chinese military and police might also be deployed to support the Hong Kong police on the ground. It’s a kind of military engagement, but done through the Hong Kong system.

There will also likely be more attacks on the protesters’ digital tools. Telegram, Whatsapp and LIHKG may be targeted with cyber attacks or temporarily shut down – turning the water off at its source.

The government will also ramp up its use of face recognition tools to identify the protesters to use in future prosecutions. The protesters are aware of this possibility and have begun removing “smart lamp posts” and their cameras at the site of recent protests.

No one knows what will happen in Hong Kong – not the government, not Beijing, not the protesters. The fluid dynamic of the protests is unprecedented.

The protesters are young, but highly experienced after having participated in the 2014 Umbrella movement. They are also motivated to continue fighting for what they believe is the future of their city.

Lam has deeply underestimated their momentum and the enormous levels of support they have across all segments of society. The protests will not stop until a pathway for a stronger democracy is on the table. Western governments can either help make that pathway happen through diplomatic interventions, or watch as the movement faces increasingly violent repression.

– ref. Like ‘shooting water’: why the Hong Kong government must accept that compromise is the only way forward – http://theconversation.com/like-shooting-water-why-the-hong-kong-government-must-accept-that-compromise-is-the-only-way-forward-122382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Lecturer, General Dentist & PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

If you went to your dentist for a check-up and dental clean in the last year, give yourself a pat on the back. Not everyone loves the dentist, but research shows people who visit at least once a year for preventative care are happier with their smile.

Regular dental visitors are also less likely to need a filling or have a tooth removed.

So how often do we need to go to the dentist? Most of us can get away with an annual trip, but some people at higher risk of dental problems should visit more often.

Read more: Child tooth decay is on the rise, but few are brushing their teeth enough or seeing the dentist

Why do I need to get my teeth cleaned?

While we all do the best we can on our own, professional teeth cleaning removes plaque, the soft yellowish build-up, and calculus (hardened plaque) we can’t get to. This soft build-up is made up of billions of different types of bacteria that live and reproduce in our mouth by feeding on the food we eat.

Most bacteria live in our bodies without causing too much trouble. But certain bacteria in dental plaque, when they grow in numbers, can lead to cavities (holes in the teeth) or gum disease.

A dental clean will reduce your chance of getting cavities or gum disease by significantly reducing the amount of plaque and calculus in your mouth.

So how often?

As a dentist, my patients often ask me how regularly they should get their teeth cleaned. My response is usually: “That depends”.

Most private health insurance schemes cover a dental check-up and clean once every six months. But there’s no hard and fast evidence, particularly if you’re a healthy person who is less likely to get a cavity or gum disease.

Read more: 50 shades whiter: what you should know about teeth whitening

However, some people are at higher risk of getting dental cavities or gum disease – and this group should get their teeth cleaned more often.

Hole in one

We know certain health and lifestyle factors can affect a person’s risk of developing cavities. Here are some yes/no questions you can ask yourself to understand whether you’re at a higher risk:

1. is your drinking water or toothpaste fluoride-free?
2. do you snack a lot, including on sweets?
3. do you avoid flossing?
4. do you brush your teeth less than twice a day?
5. do you visit your dentist for toothaches rather than check-ups?
6. do you need new fillings every time you visit the dentist?
7. is your dentist “watching” a lot of early cavities?
8. do you have to wear an appliance in your mouth such as a denture or braces?
9. do you suffer from a chronic long-term health condition such as diabetes?
10. do you suffer from a dry mouth?

If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, you’re likely to need to see your dentist or hygienist at least every six months, if not more often.

As well as removing the bug-loaded plaque and calculus, people prone to cavities benefit from the fluoride treatment after scaling.

Evidence shows professional fluoride treatment every six months can lead to a 30% reduced risk of developing cavities, needing fillings or having teeth removed.

Read more: Two million Aussies delay or don’t go to the dentist – here’s how we can fix that

Dental health is related to our overall health

Some people with chronic health issues such as heart conditions or diabetes will need to see their dentists more frequently. This is because they are more prone to gum disease.

People taking blood thinners and other medications, such as pills and infusions for osteoporosis, may need to visit the dentist more regularly too. These medications can complicate the process of an extraction or other dental work, so regular checks and cleans are best to help detect problems before they become serious.

People with bleeding gums should also see their dental practitioners more often. This is especially important if you have been diagnosed with advanced gum disease, known as periodontal disease.

What about the budget?

The average cost of a check-up, dental clean and fluoride treatment is A$231, but the cost can vary from A$150 to A$305. You can contact your local dentist to find out what they charge. Your dentist may offer you a payment plan.

If you can’t afford this, you may qualify for free or discounted treatment if you hold a concession card. Children from families that receive a Family Tax Benefit A may be eligible for free dental treatment through the Child Dental Benefits Schedule.

People with private health insurance with extras or ancillary cover will also have some or all of their dental treatment covered.

Protecting your smile

So you don’t really get cavities or have gum disease, but would prefer to see your dentist every six months? Great. Some people prefer to go twice a year to reduce the chance of a nasty toothache.

Parents often wish to set a good example for their children by making regular check and clean appointments for the whole family.

Read more: Health care is getting cheaper (unless you need a specialist, or a dentist)

There are many benefits to regular checks and cleans. Visiting your dentist regularly helps reduce the chance of needing more complex and expensive dental treatment later on.

And touching base with your oral health practitioner provides that nudge we all need now and again to eat healthily, brush better and floss more often.

– ref. How often should I get my teeth cleaned? – http://theconversation.com/how-often-should-i-get-my-teeth-cleaned-121310

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherina Petrou, Senior Lecturer in Phytoplankton Ecophysiology, University of Technology Sydney

Increasingly acidic oceans are putting algae at risk, threatening the foundation of the entire marine food web.

Our research into the effects of CO₂-induced changes to microscopic ocean algae – called phytoplankton – was published today in Nature Climate Change. It has uncovered a previously unrecognised threat from ocean acidification.

In our study we discovered increased seawater acidity reduced Antarctic phytoplanktons’ ability to build strong cell walls, making them smaller and less effective at storing carbon. At current rates of seawater acidification, we could see this effect before the end of the century.

Read more: Ocean acidification is already harming the Great Barrier Reef’s growth

What is ocean acidification?

Carbon dioxide emissions are not just altering our atmosphere. More than 40% of CO₂ emitted by people is absorbed by our oceans.

While reducing the CO₂ in our atmosphere is generally a good thing, the ugly consequence is this process makes seawater more acidic. Just as placing a tooth in a jar of cola will (eventually) dissolve it, increasingly acidic seawater has a devastating effect on organisms that build their bodies out of calcium, like corals and shellfish.

Many studies to date have therefore taken the perfectly logical step of studying the effects of seawater acidification on these “calcifying” creatures. However, we wanted to know if other, non-calcifying, species are at risk.

Diatoms in our oceans

Phytoplankton use photosynthesis to turn carbon in the atmosphere into carbon in their bodies. We looked at diatoms, a key group of phytoplankton responsible for 40% of this process in the ocean. Not only do they remove huge amounts of carbon, they also fuel entire marine food webs.

Diatoms use dissolved silica to build the walls of their cells. These dense, glass-like structures mean diatoms sink more quickly than other phytoplankton and therefore increase the transfer of carbon to the sea floor where it may be stored for millennia.

This makes diatoms major players in the global carbon cycle. That’s why our team decided to look at how climate-change-driven ocean acidification might affect this process.

We exposed a natural Antarctic phytoplankton community to increasing levels of acidity. We then measured the rate at which the whole community used dissolved silica to build their cells, as well as the rates of individual species within the community.

More acid means less silicone

The more acidic the seawater, the more the diatom communities were made up of smaller species, reducing the total amount of silica they produced. Less silica means the diatoms aren’t heavy enough to sink quickly, reducing the rate at which they float down to the sea bed, safely storing carbon away from the atmosphere.

On examining individual cells, we found many of the species were highly sensitive to increased acidity, reducing their individual silicification rates by 35-80%. These results revealed not only are communities changing, but species that remain in the community are building less-dense cell walls.

Most alarming, many of the species were affected at ocean pH levels predicted for the end of this century, adding to a growing body of evidence showing significant ecological implications of climate change will take effect much sooner than previously anticipated.

Marine diversity is in decline

These losses in silica production could have far reaching consequences for the biology and chemistry of our oceans.

Many species affected are also an important component of the diet of the Antarctic krill, which is central to the Antarctic marine food web.

Fewer diatoms sinking to the ocean floor mean significant changes in silicon cycling and carbon burial. In a time when carbon drawn down by our ocean is crucial to helping sustain our atmospheric systems, any loss from this process will exacerbate CO₂ pollution.

Our new research adds yet another group of organisms to the list of climate change casualties. It emphasises the urgent need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

Read more: Our acid oceans will dissolve coral reef sands within decades

The only course of action to prevent catastrophic climate change is to stop emitting CO₂. We need to cut our emissions soon, if we hope to keep our oceans from becoming too acidic to sustain healthy marine ecosystems.

– ref. Acid oceans are shrinking plankton, fuelling faster climate change – http://theconversation.com/acid-oceans-are-shrinking-plankton-fuelling-faster-climate-change-121443

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marika Guggisberg, Lecturer, Domestic and Family Violence, CQUniversity Australia

Many teenagers use mobile phones and social media almost constantly. And children are gaining access to these devices and platforms at increasingly younger ages.

This is a challenge for parents who need to keep up with their children’s use, the evolution of devices, and how this changes how they have to parent.

Studies show parents feel anxious and lack sufficient knowledge about their children’s use of devices.

Read more: How to make good arguments at school (and everywhere else)

They’re worried about their children being exposed to sexual images and messages online. They’re anxious their children could provide personal information to a stranger or, worse, develop a relationship with a stranger online whom they might meet in person.

When parents try to restrict their children’s online interactions, children usually find a way around it. Instead, parents should have conversations with children from a young age about cybersecurity. This will help them develop the skills they need to be safe online.

What are children exposed to?

Social networking – which includes interactions through gaming, as well as texting and social media – brings with it exciting opportunities and unique risks.

Online gaming presents unique dangers because user-generated games (where content is developed by gamers on platforms such as Roblox) are not regulated. This means children can be exposed to inappropriate sexualised and violent content.

Children are vulnerable when they interact with other users on social media, in chat rooms and within gaming. This could involve grooming by a sexual predator either to meet in person or send sexually explicit images.

A report, Latest Research: Parenting in the Digital Age by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, found 24% of 8-17-year-olds met someone in real life after initial online encounters.

While the study by the eSafety Commissioner found children and teenagers usually attempted to assess the danger of meeting someone unknown face-to-face, such as by looking for similar interests and ensuring there was no sexual content in the online communication, sexual predators use deceptive tactics to lure their victims into meeting in person.

Another Australian study found half of children played online games with someone they didn’t know. Boys were more likely to do so than girls.

How do children deal with online situations?

Research has been mixed on how young people manage cybersecurity risks.

One study found that children who are at least 11 years old seem to have some awareness of the consequences of online interactions. They use safety measures including removing comments, tags and images and blocking and deleting content when interacting online. They also rarely use photos of themselves and disable their geolocations to protect their identities.

But children also engage in risky behaviours such as sharing passwords and contacting strangers. Some findings indicated the more teens use social media sites, the more they tend to disclose personal information.

In one US study, researchers asked nearly 600 students aged 11-13 about cybersafety. The results indicated 40% accepted friend requests from people they do not know, and they were more concerned with protecting their personal information from parents than strangers online.

Several studies found children think parental restrictions are intrusive and invade their privacy. This includes teens feeling disrespected and even stalked by their parents, which leads to a loss of trust.

What can parents do?

Restricting children’s online use is unhelpful. Parents should talk to their children about healthy and age-appropriate online interactions.

This includes avoiding disclosing personal information (real name, date of birth, phone number, address, school, or pictures that reveal such information). Parents should provide guidance and explain the consequences of online dangers to their children in a way that does not instil fear but explains their concern.

Parents should talk to their children about online risk and safety behaviours from a young age, as soon as they start using online games and engaging on social media sites, to help them build a stronger foundation for their transition to adolescence.

Read more: Don’t fall for it: a parent’s guide to protecting your kids from online hoaxes

Teenagers who have frequent conversations with their parents have a greater awareness of online risks.

Children deserve to play online games and participate on social media, but still be protected from harm. Internet technology does have many advantages, including connecting people through social networking, education and recreation. With caution and open communication, the risks can be managed together.

When children are supported and can discuss safety strategies with their parents, they’re more likely to reach out when something happens that makes them feel unsure or uncomfortable about certain online interactions.

– ref. Children can be exposed to sexual predators online, so how can parents teach them to be safe? – http://theconversation.com/children-can-be-exposed-to-sexual-predators-online-so-how-can-parents-teach-them-to-be-safe-120661

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, Professor of Economics, School of Economics, Finance and Property, Curtin University

Outright home ownership has long been regarded as a supporting pillar of Australian retirement incomes policies. A report released today by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) raises concerns that rising mortgage debt and falling home ownership rates in later life are undermining the role of home ownership in supporting retirees’ financial wellbeing.

Achieving outright home ownership is similar to the accumulation of pension income entitlements that come on stream in later life. This is because the outright owner does not have to meet rents. That reduces the need for a large income stream to pay for shelter as well as the chances of low-income older Australians falling into poverty.

Read more: Why secure and affordable housing is an increasing worry for age pensioners

Numbers of mortgagors and private renters soar

According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Survey of Income and Housing, home-ownership rates among Australians aged 55-64 years dropped from 86% to 81% between 2001 and 2016. We are also seeing a major shift in older Australians’ readiness to shoulder mortgage debt in later life.

Mortgage burdens have spiked in the 55-64 age group. In 2001 roughly 80% were mortgage-free. Fifteen years later this had plummeted to only 56%.

Indebtedness is even growing among owners aged 65 and over. In 2001 nearly 96% were mortgage-free. By 2016 this proportion had fallen below 90%.

These trends are expected to continue. That means, as the population ages, a growing number of older Australians will still be paying off mortgages, or trying to meet rents from fixed incomes.

The table below shows how the housing tenures of older Australians are projected to change between 2016 and 2031 based on ABS population forecasts and modelling estimates.

We expect the number of outright owners aged 55-64 to plunge by 42%, from more than 1.2 million to 708,000. The number of 65-plus outright owners is predicted to rise by 41%, but this lags behind the 52% population growth in this age group.

On the other hand, the numbers of older mortgagors and private renters are projected to soar. Among 55-to-64-year-olds, mortgagor numbers jump from under 1 million to over 1.6 million, a 71% increase. The number of private renters rises by 54% from 369,000 to 567,000.

Beyond what was the age pension threshold of 65 years, mortgagors and private renters are expected to roughly double in number.

Read more: More people are retiring with high mortgage debts. The implications are huge

What are the budget impacts?

The combined impact of these changes in tenure and demographics is expected to increase Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) eligibility among seniors.

On its own, demographic change is forecast to lift the number of CRA recipients, and the real cost of providing CRA, by around 35%.

Add the projected increases in the private rental share of the housing stock and the number of CRA recipients is estimated to rise by 60%, from 414,000 to 664,000, between 2016 and 2031.

The real cost to the federal budget of rent assistance payments to older Australians is forecast to blow out from $972 million to $1.55 billion a year.

We can also expect to see public housing waiting lists grow if these tenure changes and demographics eventuate. Their combined impact through to 2031 is expected to swell the number of older persons eligible for public housing from 247,000 to 441,000 – a 79% increase.

What are the impacts on poverty?

On an income-only basis we estimate 1.25 million seniors were in poverty in 2016. On taking their housing costs into account, that number falls to 802,000.

But the role of home ownership in preventing poverty is challenged if our projected declines in home ownership rates and increases in debt eventuate. The table below shows the projected increase in the after-housing-cost poverty count from 802,000 in 2016 to 1.15 million in 2031.

Policy challenges on multiple fronts

The demand for public housing will grow. If all else remains unchanged in the housing system and economy, seniors on public housing wait lists will increase by over 75%. That’s more than twice the 35% increase in the population of seniors between 2016 and 2031.

Community housing organisations would also come under increasing pressure.

As the number of senior private rental tenants grows, governments will need to reform tenancy regulations in ways that enable housing retrofits to meet mobility needs and allow for ageing in place. Tenure insecurity in the rental sector could hinder planning for aged support services.

Read more: Life as an older renter, and what it tells us about the urgent need for tenancy reform

We may also see a more fundamental transformation of Australia’s housing system and lifestyles in old age. High real house price growth relative to incomes remains a barrier to first home ownership despite low interest rates. Furthermore, the mandatory superannuation guarantee likely displaces some saving in other assets, including housing.

There is therefore a growing prospect of delayed entry into home ownership and of people carrying more debt in later life. Longer working lives and the use of superannuation benefits to pay down mortgages both look increasingly likely.

– ref. Fall in ageing Australians’ home-ownership rates looms as seismic shock for housing policy – http://theconversation.com/fall-in-ageing-australians-home-ownership-rates-looms-as-seismic-shock-for-housing-policy-120651

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graham White, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s key message to business in a landmark speech on Monday was “back yourself”.

He said the best way to boost economic growth was to boost productivity, and the best way to do that was for businesses to undertake productivity-enhancing investments.

My message today for business is to back yourself and use your balance sheet to invest and grow.

With Australian corporates enjoying healthy balance sheets, record low borrowing costs and strong equity market conditions, the question is: are corporates being aggressive enough in the pursuit of growth?

On Thursday the Bureau of Statistics will release investment figures for the three months to June. The trend estimates for the three months to March showed mining investment down 2.8%, manufacturing investment down 4.3%, and other investment up just 0.7%.

According to Frydenberg too many businesses are using funds that would have once invested to buy back their own shares and return capital to their shareholders.

Why businesses don’t back themselves

He was effectively alluding to something that had come to notice as far back as the 1980’s and that has fascinated some economists, but mostly those outside the mainstream.

It is the incentive for firms to avoid the difficult and risky search for the long-term returns that can come from expansion and modernisation and instead maximise immediate shareholder value.

To the extent that it inhibits growth, it certainly doesn’t help the economy.

But if his speech was meant to be a piece of moral suasion directed at corporations, I fear it missed the point and might in any case be fruitless.

Decisions about whether to invest come down to views about returns from investments, and they come down to views about likely growth in consumer and business spending.

Consumers aren’t spending

Put another way, investing in new capacity is ultimately about whether or not there will be demand for the goods and services that will be produced by the new capacity.

Right now, to state the bleeding obvious, the outlook for spending isn’t particularly rosy.

We’ve sluggish consumer demand, sluggish business demand, and are facing sluggish overseas demand in part because of an impending trade war and in part from a government over-reliant on using the Reserve Bank to stimulate the economy instead of its won spending.

In this sort of climate, I suspect no amount of moral suasion will improve the expected rates of return on investments in new capacity.

Investment can be counterproductive

The treasurer is aware that there is a demand problem, as his comments about trade agreements and public sector infrastructure projects indicate.

But in underplaying the need create demand, his calls for investments that boost labour productivity bring with them a potential downside.

Enhanced productivity growth in the absence of sustained improvements in spending is likely to cost jobs or force up unemployment.

Being able to produce more with the same amount of labour means less employment, unless demand is increasing.

Read more: Shock. More investment isn’t necessarily better. Those instant asset write-offs are bad tax policy

Of course, when demand does take off the economy will need the capacity to meet it, so the concern with productivity enhancing investment is legitimate. But it helps not to have it until it is clear demand is going to take off.

Frydenberg might be leaning to the view that once productivity grows, demand will be taken care of.

More productivity mightn’t always be good

It is a popular view; that greater labour productivity (more production per worker) will create the conditions for faster wage growth which will itself boost consumer spending.

Frydenberg set it out at the beginning of his speech. Economic growth was driven by population, productivity and (labour market) participation.

There’s even a view that technological change will itself create jobs and consumer demand.

The counter proposition is that technological change displaces workers and generates technological unemployment.

It’s a debate with real world Australian resonance. If Australian businesses did boost investment as the treasurer wants, the improved productivity that resulted would necessarily generate unemployment unless demand grew alongside it.

The question for us is whether the productivity growth would increase demand in and of itself, or whether the government would need to act to make sure it happened.

– ref. ‘Back yourself’ Treasurer Frydenberg tells business. But it’s not that simple – http://theconversation.com/back-yourself-treasurer-frydenberg-tells-business-but-its-not-that-simple-122397

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Pollard, Tutor in Philosophy and Sociology, Deakin University

Michel Foucault was one of the most famous thinkers of the late 20th century, achieving celebrity-like status before his untimely death in 1984.

His academic career culminated in a 1970 appointment as “professor of history of systems of thought” at France’s most prestigious university – the College de France. This unusual title was created because of the distinctive nature of Foucault’s work, which straddled disciplines such as philosophy, history, and politics.

Foucault was interested in power and social change. In particular, he studied how these played out as France shifted from a monarchy to democracy via the French revolution.

He believed that we have tended to oversimplify this transition by viewing it as an ongoing and inevitable attainment of “freedom” and “reason”. This, he said, had caused us to misunderstand the way that power operates in modern societies.

For instance, even though the new form of government no longer relied on torture, and public hangings as punishments, it still sought to control people’s bodies — by focusing on their minds.

In his 1975 book Discipline and Punish, Foucault argued that French society had reconfigured punishment through the new “humane” practices of “discipline” and “surveillance”, used in new institutions such as prisons, the mental asylums, schools, workhouses and factories.

These institutions produced obedient citizens who comply with social norms, not simply under threat of corporal punishment, but as a result of their behaviour being constantly sculpted to ensure they fully internalise the dominant beliefs and values.

In Foucault’s view, new “disciplinary” sciences (for instance, criminology, psychiatry, education) aimed to make all “deviance” visible, and thus correctable, in a way that was impossible in the previous social order.

He used English philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s 1787 Panopticon as a metaphor to illustrate his point. This was a circular prison designed to lay each inmate open to the scrutiny of a central watchtower, which was positioned so that individual prisoners could never know when they are being watched.

The prisoners therefore always had to act as though they were being watched. In the wider world, he argued, this resulted in docile people who could fit into the discipline of factories, mental institutions, and the dominant sexual morality.

Foucault argued that people with “mental illnesses” (formerly known as madness) were controlled by relentless efforts at correction to a scientifically determined “norm”.

His 1976 History of Sexuality Volume 1 argued that, rather than talking about deviant acts, scientists talked about deviant types, such as “the pervert” or “the homosexual”, who were in need of concerted efforts of medical intervention and correction.

Power/knowledge

Foucault argued that knowledge and power are intimately bound up. So much so, that that he coined the term “power/knowledge” to point out that one is not separate from the other.

Every exercise of power depends on a scaffold of knowledge that supports it. And claims to knowledge advance the interests and power of certain groups while marginalising others. In practice, this often legitimises the mistreatment of these others in the name of correcting and helping them.

What has made Foucault so appealing to such a broad range of scholars is that he didn’t just look at abstract theories of philosophy or of historical change. Rather, he analysed what was actually said. In his most important works, this included an analysis of texts, images and buildings in order to map how forms of knowledge change.

For example, he argued that sexuality was not simply repressed in the 19th century. Rather, it was widely discussed in an expanding new scientific literature where patients were encouraged to talk about sexual experiences in clinical settings.

With the recent explosion in surveillance cameras as well the role of “big data” we have now well and truly entered the surveillance society. Foucault’s insights on this topic continue to be explored by scholars across the social sciences and humanities.

Read more: Why big data may be having a big effect on how our politics plays out

He has also had a substantial influence on contemporary work in sexuality and gender, sociological studies of mental health institutions and of the medical profession; and in history, politics, cultural studies, and beyond.

An important feature of his theory is that where there is power there is also always resistance. So there are always “sites of resistance”: spaces that hold out the promise for a reconfiguring of power relations in a way that might redress oppressive institutions and practices.

For example, homosexuality has historically been reinterpreted as a “sin”, a “medical pathology”, and now a legitimate “sexuality”, showing how change is possible.

But it is only through a deepened understanding of the origin and structure of our present social order that we will be able to grasp and seize future possibilities for social change.

– ref. Explainer: the ideas of Foucault – http://theconversation.com/explainer-the-ideas-of-foucault-99758

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Outgoing secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department Martin Parkinson has condemned “entrenched disadvantage” in Australia, in his valedictory address on leaving the public service.

Parkinson also warned it was imperative that Australia did not allow “the kind of retreat from openness and vilification of differences” that had happened in some other countries.

During his long career Parkinson headed the climate change department (now defunct) and treasury (from which he was sacked by Tony Abbott), as well as the prime minister’s department, where he will now be succeeded by Phil Gaetjens, formerly Scott Morrison’s chief of staff and most recently head of treasury.

In his Monday address Parkinson said Australia had not had “the rising income inequality at the top end” of the United States and much of western Europe, “although wealth has become more unequally distributed off the back of rising house prices”.

But this was a “low bar”, he said.

“Our history has bequeathed a degree of entrenched disadvantage that should be seen as a disgrace in any country, but particularly one as developed as Australia,” he said.

More than half of those in the bottom decile in 2000 were still in the lowest 20% 15 years later, he said.

Ideally, people should only be at the bottom of the income distribution spectrum temporarily due to life events, not whole families and communities sentenced to it for generations.

If you want a single thing to blame for the disadvantage we see in Australia, particularly in our remote areas, look no further than an understandable lack of hope. With those kind of odds, anything else would be irrational.

A key to evening people’s chances was to have the best education system that could be achieved and a culture valuing learning, Parkinson said.

He said Australia would need to use all its advantages to sustain its prosperity and security in the future. These included its multicultural society, a merit-based culture and a market-based approach.

There are really only two choices for this country. We can take pride in our diversity and use it as an advantage when interacting with the world, or we can hunker down behind borders and slowly gnaw at each other.

Parkinson said that “to their credit, our parliamentary leaders have maintained a remarkable commitment to an open economy and social cohesion, despite immense pressures the other way”.

On the international front, Parkinson said many regional and global institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the G20 and APEC, were struggling.

It’s particularly hard for the WTO to enforce trade rules when the largest countries are openly flouting them.

The United States largely built this order in its own image, under-writing it with security guarantees. We benefit immensely from this order and must help support it wherever we can.

He reflected on his disappointment at his dismissal as treasury secretary. “I received the ‘wooden spoon’ as head of the Treasury in 2013 – a job I enjoyed and in which I aspired to follow the nation-building work done by predecessors such as Chris Higgins, Ted Evans and Ken Henry.

“It was a drawn out departure, and I couldn’t even look forward to sitting on the couch to watch a care free game on the weekend as the Essendon Bombers also had a terrible season.”

– ref. Martin Parkinson declares ‘entrenched disadvantage’ in Australia a disgrace – http://theconversation.com/martin-parkinson-declares-entrenched-disadvantage-in-australia-a-disgrace-122410

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The number of suicides in Australia has been rising in the last decade, with more than 3,000 Australians taking their life in 2017, according to the latest available ABS figures. Some of the most vulnerable groups include Indigenous Australians, young Australians, unemployed people, and veterans.

Scott Morrison has declared this a key priority area for the government. He has appointed Christine Morgan, CEO of the National Mental Health Commission, as the national suicide prevention advisor to the prime minister.

On this episode, Christine Morgan speaks with Michelle Grattan about the issue – what we know so far, and what needs more clarity. She stresses the role of communities in tackling the rising rates, and also argues for a more holistic view – beyond narrow mental health problems – of the factors that drive people to contemplate taking their own lives.

Yes, it may be that they’re suffering from a mental health condition. Yes, they may be suffering from a health condition. But they may also be being affected by other things which significantly impact, like what is their housing security?[…]What is their employment situation? what is their financial situation? Have they come from a background of trauma?

Anyone seeking support and information about suicide can contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.

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A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

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– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: PM’s advisor Christine Morgan on tackling Australia’s rising suicide rates – http://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-pms-advisor-christine-morgan-on-tackling-australias-rising-suicide-rates-122401

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hiba Jebeile, PhD candidate/Research Dietitian, University of Sydney

Over the last week, a weight loss app targeted at children and teenagers aged 8-17 has sparked concern among health professionals and parents around the world.

More than 90,000 people have signed an online petition calling for withdrawal of an app called Kurbo.

Kurbo was launched in 2014. WW (formerly Weight Watchers) bought it last year and have recently relaunched it.

It’s currently only available in the United States, but we could see it launched in Australia.

Read more: More than one in four Aussie kids are overweight or obese: we’re failing them, and we need a plan

Overweight and obesity affect one in four Australian children and adolescents. Excess weight is likely to persist into adulthood and is associated with the development of chronic disease.

While there are calls for better treatment options, the way treatments for obesity are delivered is important.

Unsupervised use of an app that encourages children to track their weight carries the danger of perpetuating body image issues and leading to disordered eating.

The traffic light system

Kurbo is based on the traffic light system, a family-based lifestyle intervention developed by Stanford University.

This system groups foods into three categories:

• “red” (limit or budget them into your plan, for example lollies and soft drinks)
• “amber” (watch your portion, for example lean meat and pasta)
• “green” (eat any time, for example fruit and vegetables)

The aim of this system is to encourage families to eat more “green” foods and less “red” foods. The traffic light system has been shown to be effective in improving weight-related outcomes in children treated for overweight or obesity without a negative effect on eating behaviours, when used by the whole family through a supported program.

But Kurbo uses the traffic light system as an online app targeted to children directly, rather than to parents or families. Children aged under 13 need a parent’s permission to download the app, but those over 13 don’t.

Alongside other features, the paid version of the app provides children with a weekly video-chat check-in with a health coach. The training health coaches have had in child obesity, mental health and body image is unclear.

Read more: Kids’ diets and screen time: to set up good habits, make healthy choices the default at home

Possible pros

Technology and apps providing health services are growing in number, and can be convenient and cost effective.

Importantly, families actually want to use technology for more flexibility in the way they receive nutritional support.

In one study of a telehealth nutrition intervention with a website, Facebook group and text messages, benefits included ease of self-monitoring and increased access to services for families living in regional or remote areas. This intervention resulted in improved eating habits in children.

Apps in particular are a promising option because they’re portable and can connect with other technologies.

Read more: Let’s untangle the murky politics around kids and food (and ditch the guilt)

Kurbo was one of three apps targeted to children identified in a 2016 review of mobile apps for weight management. The version of the app evaluated at the time of the review was found to meet eight evidence-based strategies for weight management: self-monitoring, goal-setting, physical activity support, healthy eating support, social support, gamification, and personalised feedback delivered via a health coach.

Technology evolves rapidly, so it’s unclear if these features all remain in the current version. As we’re based in Australia, and the app is only available in the US, we can’t access the app directly to verify this.

Kurbo reports 90% of pilot study participants maintained or reduced their weight, and experienced “higher levels of happiness, self-confidence and self-esteem”.

But importantly, the app hasn’t been researched scientifically and independently.

Possible cons

Targeting children with a weight-focused app brings up concerns about the potential risk of developing disordered eating or eating disorders.

Research has shown an association between self-reported dieting during adolescence and an increased risk of binge eating and eating disorders. These data highlight the risk of unsupervised dietary change.

Targeting children, rather than parents, shifts the responsibility to the child. With the foods available to them largely out of their control, this could lead to internalised feelings of failure if they cannot comply with the program.

While Kurbo is designed to develop healthy eating behaviours, the marketing materials send different messages. This includes the use of before and after pictures in children as young as eight years old to promote success stories.

We don’t know how these will impact children, both in the short and long term. Children are at an age where body image is fragile due to changes occurring in preparation for, or during, puberty.

The importance of supervision

A recently published review of 30 studies found professionally run obesity treatment programs, conducted in children and adolescents, were associated with reduced eating disorder risk.

Treatment programs included in the review involved regular face-to-face contact with a trained professional; usually a dietitian, nutritionist or psychologist.

This review highlights that mode of delivery and length of contact are important aspects of weight management.

Read more: How many people have eating disorders? We don’t really know, and that’s a worry

There have been limited studies assessing children’s risk of developing eating disorders following online interventions, so the impact of Kurbo on this remains unknown.

Kurbo states it will monitor participants for safety concerns including rapid weight loss and mental health issues, notifying parents if these occur.

As a commercially available program, it is unclear how and if such safety measures will be acted upon. This compares to a program delivered in a health setting or as a clinical trial, which would have strategies in place, approved by an ethics committee, to identify unexpected adverse events.

Weight loss isn’t always the right goal

Australian guidelines recommend weight maintenance rather than weight loss for most children before puberty, because it’s expected their weight and height will increase as they grow.

Weight loss is recommended, with the support of a health professional, for adolescents with moderate to severe obesity and/or those who have started to develop complications such as pre-diabetes. Treatment should be targeted to the individual lifestyle, and involve regular contact.

Read more: Five things parents can do to improve their children’s eating patterns

If parents are concerned about their child’s weight, they should consult their GP or an Accredited Practising Dietitian, to assess if intervention is required, and suitable options.

– ref. A weight loss app may be a risky way to address obesity in children – http://theconversation.com/a-weight-loss-app-may-be-a-risky-way-to-address-obesity-in-children-122129

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Quentin Grafton, Director of the Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

In the wake of a damning royal commission and an ABC Four Corners investigation, the federal government has created an Inspector General for the Murray-Darling Basin, to combat water theft, ensure water recovery and efficiency projects are delivered properly, and essentially make sure everyone is acting as they should.

While this is a laudable aim, the Inspector General – currently former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mike Keelty – cannot hope to do this job without knowing how much water is being used in the Basin, by whom it is used, and where.

Read more: Billions spent on Murray-Darling water infrastructure: here’s the result

This might seem like basic information, but the Bureau of Meteorology, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and state water accounts are not up to the task.

We urgently need a comprehensive audit to track the water in the Murray Darling Basin, so Inspector General Keelty can effectively investigate what he has already described as a “river ripe for corruption”.

Up the creek

Back in 2004 all governments in Australia agreed to track and provide information on water in terms of planning, monitoring, trading, environmental management, and on-farm management.

But water accounts still lack many essential features including double-entry accounting. When applied to water, double-entry accounts means that when one person consumes more water, someone else must consume less.

Read more: Aboriginal voices are missing from the Murray-Darling Basin crisis

The technology to track this already exists: satellites that can quantify surface water are successfully being used used in the United States.

If we had monthly water consumption measurements, we could see how much water is being used, by whom, when and where. This would help decision makers see problems before they emerge, such as the mass fish deaths in the Darling River, and respond in real time.

As a recent report from the Natural Resources Commission shows, without proper accounting, too much water is taken upstream – seriously harming downstream communities.

Wide support for an audit

An independent Basin-wide water audit is supported by communities and some irrigators.

In July NSW farmers voted in support of a federal royal commission into “the failings of the Murray Darling Basin Plan”. In our view, this vote shows many farmers support much greater transparency about how much water is being consumed, and by whom.

Read more: The Darling River is simply not supposed to dry out, even in drought

Double-entry water consumption accounts would help identify whether the billions of dollars planned in subsidies to increase irrigation efficiency will actually deliver value for money. But irrigation improvements only generate public benefits when more water is left or returns to flow in streams and rivers. Such flows are essential to healthy rivers and sustainable Basin communities.

Irrigators’ crops benefit from increased efficiency, so subsidies help farmers greatly – but it is very unclear whether they do anything for the public good. In fact, they seem to reduce the amount of water that finds its way back into the rivers. Research also shows infrastructure subsidies to improve irrigation efficiency typically increases water consumption at the Basin level.

Our research, published earlier this year in the Australasian Journal of Water Resources shows federal irrigation infrastructure subsidies may have reduced net stream and river levels. This is even after accounting for the water entitlements irrigators provided to the government in exchange for these subsidies.

Read more: 5 ways the government can clean up the Murray-Darling Basin Plan

Independent audits

Just like financial accounts, water accounts must be independently audited.

For the average taxpayer, who has to justify every dollar they get from the government, it’s hard to imagine how some corporations can be given millions of dollars in subsidies without actual measurements (before and after) of the claimed water savings.

If Newstart recipients need to report and manage their income and have a job plan, as part of a system of appropriate checks and balances, shouldn’t the Australian government also be checking whether billions spent on subsidies for irrigators actually saves water?

Read more: The Murray-Darling Basin scandal: economists have seen it coming for decades

A water audit would cost less than 1% of the money already spent on water infrastructure subsidies in the Basin. Unlike irrigation infrastructure subsidies, a water audit is value for money.

Importantly, independent water consumption accounts would allow the Inspector General for the Murray-Darling Basin to effectively manage our most critical nature resource, water.

– ref. Paddling blind: why we urgently need a water audit – http://theconversation.com/paddling-blind-why-we-urgently-need-a-water-audit-122118

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grahame Dowling, Honorary Professor, University of Technology Sydney

One of my banks invited me to a customer lunch a few weeks back so that it could announce its commitment to the new Banking Code of Conduct.

Here was a chance for it to say sorry to its customers and promise that things would be better in the future.

So I accepted the invitation, and the chief executive did indeed say sorry. A representative from the Australian Banking Association briefly introduced the code. No questions or comments were sought from attendees, and good food was served.

However, before attending the lunch I did some homework on the new code.

If it was an article sent to a journal for review it would have been sent back to the authors for another revise and resubmit.

There’s much that’s missing…

The latest version of the code is a revision of the 2013 version – which obviously did not work. This one is better: it is a set of enforceable standards that customers and small businesses and their guarantors can expect from Australian banks. It has been approved by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

But it has has some gaping holes in it. Let me explain.

It is preceded by an introduction written by Anna Bligh, the head of the Australian Banking Association, a bank-funded lobby group. It says the new code is designed to “better meet community standards and expectations”.

But what are those community expectations?

Nowhere in the code does it say.

So I asked my dining companions, invited to the lunch by the bank, what they expected of banks.

It quickly became apparent there are two types of expectations.

One deals with the process of banking. In essence, this means the banks will do the paperwork correctly. The new code is all about process, roughly 40 pages and 200 paragraphs. From the perspective of the banks trying to regain trust, this is helpful. If the banks abide by the new code they can expect co-called “cognitive” trust to be restored. Cognitive trust is the belief that procedures are being followed.

…including outcomes

The second type deals with outcomes. As I noted, outcomes are missing from the new code. The customers at my table wanted four:

• good service, especially when there is a problem

• convenient banking, via ATMs, branches, internet applications, etc.

• affordable banking which means reasonable fees and charges

• passing on Reserve Bank interest rate changes

Luckily we had two bank employees at our table to ask how the bank was providing such outcomes. The conversation did not go well.

For example, one complaint was that when you call the bank for help you have to go through an extended menu of options before you get to talk to someone – often in Manila. Wouldn’t it be possible to have a call centre in Australia and speak directly to a local? No. Why? Because it is cheaper to have the call centres in Asia, and the other banks do it.

Read more: The new banking code looks impressive, but what will it achieve?

Similar profit-before-customer-service explanations were provided for questions in categories 2, 3 and 4.

Our hosts were becoming just a little bit defensive by the time lunch concluded.

What they were hearing was that the new code was failing to prod the banks into restoring emotional trust. This is the sort of trust that provides the glue for customer loyalty and word-of-mouth or word-of-mouse recommendation.

Liking, or as some advertising agencies like to suggest, loving a brand is what makes it successful.

It’s a standard consultants’ document

The people who drafted the new code appear to have followed standard consulting advice. This says that you can guarantee a process but never an outcome. Outcomes are often determined by factors outside your control.

So the safe practice is to draft a code that focuses on process. It might help to restore cognitive trust but it will do little to rekindle emotional trust.

It means that even though the Australian Banking Association and the banks are proud of their new code, it will do only do half the job. It’s an opportunity lost.

What do the bankers think?

Heading out from lunch I met the bank chief executive. Five minutes later we both agreed that the new code was as much public relations as substance. However, his bank was way ahead of the code in its journey to restore trust. He and his team have begun significant internal culture change. Never again would bad apples and bad process contaminate good banking practice.

I wonder if the team members at our table will provide our feedback about the code and the bank’s culture of putting profit before customers to their next team meeting?

Our emotional trust stayed exactly where it was after what was a very pleasant meal, even though we now know who will end up paying for it.

Read more: Banking Royal Commission: no commissions, no exemptions, no fees without permission. Hayne gets the government to do a U-turn

– ref. Lunch with bankers. Even they’re unimpressed with their new Banking Code of Conduct – http://theconversation.com/lunch-with-bankers-even-theyre-unimpressed-with-their-new-banking-code-of-conduct-122036

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Evans Bailey, PhD Researcher in Virtual Reality, Auckland University of Technology

Immortality has been a topic of discussion since the legend of the Holy Grail.

Some people have gone as far as cryogenic freezing after death in the hope that one day science will have advanced enough to resurrect them. Others believe the route to immortality lies in the digital realm.

The theory that humans can be digitised and live on within the digital confines of a computer-based existence has been the subject of debate. But until recently, no one had taken the idea much beyond research and discussion.

Last year, a consortium of unidentified individuals launched Virternity with the stated goal of a digital life for all. A world that would be owned not by any government but by the people.

This digital world, Virternity said, would remove the physical constraints upon us and the planet and usher in a completely new plane of existence. Then, without any warning, Virternity disappeared.

Read more: Virtual reality adds to tourism through touch, smell and real people’s experiences

The digital human

Although the future evolution of humanity is much discussed and conjectured, perhaps nobody had taken it quite as seriously as this. In its infancy, Virternity seemed concerned with the launch of a new digital currency, the Virie, by which it proposed to fund its endeavour.

An interesting point is that the creators of Virternity were so concerned with ensuring public ownership that very few people even know or knew who exactly they were. Their reasoning was apparently to prevent governments and their agencies subsuming their interests with corporate and other less desirable aims. But being anonymous also has its advantages if a company wants to slide into the shadows, as appears to have been the case.

The biggest question is whether it is even possible for a human, or any living being for that matter, to be digitised in the first place. Therein lies the dichotomy of two different schools of thought.

Read more: Curious Kids: How do you know that we aren’t in virtual reality right now?

Philosophy versus mind uploading

Those who would align themselves with thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson believe there is a higher consciousness above the physical persona or body. Such philosophical thinking rests on the idea of duality – the mind and the body are not the same. Therefore, it would seem impossible to digitise a human. How can one put the essence of a human spirit into a computer, almost like a genie into a bottle?

Conversely, several prominent scientists and neurosurgeons contend that the physical is all there is. If one can copy the brain of a human in digital form then the rest is easy. Copying the brain is not particularly simple, though. Proposals include making thousands of micro-thin slices of a brain and copying the neural network revealed.

To do this, a machine would need to be constructed that can make these slices, and then a willing volunteer would need to be found. These would be physical slices from a brain preserved before death. That’s the drawback. In fact, a startup, Nectome, has been proposing to do just that and preserve your brain until the day it can be digitised.

The person, or at least the contents of their brain, would ultimately be transferred to a computer, and thus remain alive or perhaps be reborn. Experiments have been undertaken on scanning a mouse brain but the breakthrough of digitising the entirety of even a mouse brain has not happened.

What the future might hold

Moving on from the mechanics that might digitise us all, what would await humanity with digital immortality? Virternity said that great scientists and artists could pursue their careers for centuries, and we need never say goodbye to our loved ones.

The demand for planetary resources would be severely reduced to only that needed for the physical humans left on the planet and of course the computers holding the rest of us. The planet itself might return to a more natural state. We ourselves would be free of famine, pestilence and disease, and could pursue whatever life we wanted, until the end of time.

Perhaps these sound like admirable goals, a utopian dream. But if humans were unleashed into this apparently digital world, would we take advantage of the freedom or simply go about reproducing a digital hell on earth? And what about digital viruses and other distortions of the virtual world itself?

We already have the experience of worlds such as Second Life, a highly successful virtual world.

Virternity would have been the first wholly immersive endeavour to replace the physical reality with a purely digital one. Once digital, there probably would be no going back.

Other important questions arise. How much computing power would we need to run Virternity. Where would it be based and how can we ensure that nobody will simply just switch us all off or press delete?

Perhaps these questions never will be answered or at least not by Virternity as it was. Perhaps a new pheonix will arise from their ashes or someone else will take up the torch. But for now it seems we will have to wait for a digital utopia to become a fact rather than fiction.

– ref. The digital human: the cyber version of humanity’s quest for immortality – http://theconversation.com/the-digital-human-the-cyber-version-of-humanitys-quest-for-immortality-108081

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elyse Methven, Lecturer in Law, University of Technology Sydney

As the state election loomed last year, the NSW government rushed through a new crime targeting drug suppliers. A person who supplies a prohibited drug for profit can now be prosecuted for homicide if another person uses the drug and dies as a result.

The first of its kind in Australia, the offence of “drug supply causing death” carries a maximum 20 year sentence. The law was enacted after the deaths of 23-year-old Joshua Tam and 21-year-old Diana Nguyen at the Defqon.1 music festival in September, 2018.

In its haste to “do something” in response to their tragic deaths, the NSW government failed to consider harmful consequences that may arise from treating drug-related fatalities as homicide. In fact, my research of how similar laws have operated in the US suggests the new crime of “drug supply causing death” may increase the risk of fatal drug overdoses.

An unprincipled approach

Just three days after the festival deaths, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian commissioned a panel comprising three heads of government agencies to advise whether “new offences or increased penalties were needed to stop drug dealers endangering lives”.

The panel was directed not to consider pill testing, consistent with the government’s “zero tolerance” approach to illicit drug use.

And the panel warned “more analysis and consultation” was needed before enacting the offence, given the “legal complexities” involved.

Read more: Testing festival goers’ pills isn’t the only way to reduce overdoses. Here’s what else works

But the government ignored this advice. Without any known consultation with criminal law experts or the NSW Law Reform Commission, it hastily enacted the offence of “drug supply causing death” in November last year.

The crime of ‘drug supply causing death’

Like the controversial “one-punch” homicide offence introduced in 2014, the new drug homicide offence is an attempt to quickly “fix” a complex public health problem.

The offence is in section 25C of the Crimes Act 1900, and says the supply must be for “financial or material gain”, as opposed to what Attorney-General Mark Speakman called the “young friends” scenario. In other words, people who pass on drugs to their friends without making a profit shouldn’t be prosecuted for this offence (but may be liable for other drug supply offences).

The legislation was drafted before the government could consider the recommendations of the NSW coronial inquest into the drug-related deaths of six young people at music festivals. The coroner is expected to hand down her findings in October.

The music festival deaths have been linked to ecstasy (MDMA) use. However, section 25C targets drugs beyond ecstasy and contexts beyond music festivals. It extends to the supply of any prohibited drug (except cannabis) including crystal methamphetamine (ice), cocaine and opioids such as heroin.

Read more: Law and order is no get-out-of-jail card for floundering politicians

On the other hand, if a person supplies another person a legal — albeit potentially harmful — drug, such as alcohol or tobacco, and the user dies from ingesting or inhaling that drug, the supplier cannot be prosecuted under section 25C.

New crime may do more harm than good

Similar drug-induced homicide laws in the US, which have existed since the 1980s, show how the NSW crime might exacerbate, rather than prevent, drug-related harms.

In many US states, drug suppliers are zealously prosecuted for homicide, with police opting to pursue low-level dealers as opposed to major traffickers.

Charges are disproportionately laid against people of colour in cases involving white victims. People of colour also serve longer sentences for these offences than white defendants.

Disturbingly, evidence from the US suggests drug homicide offences increase the risk of death to drug users. Faced with the prospect of prosecution and a lengthy prison sentence, suppliers and bystanders are more likely to abandon people experiencing drug overdose symptoms than seek medical help.

The NSW parliament could have, but did not, enact a “Good Samaritan” immunity alongside the crime of drug supply causing death. This immunity would allow dealers to avoid prosecution for homicide when they immediately seek medical help for users showing signs of distress.

Read more: Unlawful strip searches are on the rise in NSW and police aren’t being held accountable

Independently-made choices

Section 25C is a radical departure from NSW homicide law. For the crimes of murder and manslaughter, the prosecution must establish a causal link between the defendant’s actions and the victim’s death.

Applying established rules of causation, in 2012, the High Court held that a methadone supplier was not criminally responsible for the death of the person who self-administered the methadone. The High Court reasoned that the voluntary and informed decision of an adult to take a prohibited drug broke the “chain of causation” between supply and death.

Section 25C departs from the libertarian principle that individuals are responsible for independently-made choices that may bring about harm to themselves.

For the crime of drug supply causing death, a “causal link” need only be established between the drug user’s action in taking the drug and their death. As a result, a person might be prosecuted for drug supply causing death when:

• a person overdoses on drugs to intentionally end their own life
• a person drives under the influence of drugs, crashes their vehicle and dies
• a person loses their inhibitions from taking drugs, jumps off a bridge and dies.

These are just some of the unintended consequences that may arise from the failure to subject this law to rigorous scrutiny.

Assessing risk of death

One aspect of the offence that is narrower than its US counterparts is the “mental” element. The prosecution must prove the person who supplied the drug knew, or should reasonably have known, the drug supply would expose another person to a “significant risk of death”.

Read more: How hard is it to say ‘no’ to drugs?

Assessing whether a risk of death is significant will be no easy task, and will depend on the unique facts of each case. Variables include whether the accused knew, or should have known, about the quantity, strength and toxicity of the drug; whether the drug was consumed with other drugs including alcohol; environmental factors; and the user’s health.

What’s clear is this punitive criminal law response to a serious public health problem, without adequate consultation or evidence, will produce unintended consequences. Failing to learn from the US experience, the new offence of drug supply causing death is likely to result in more harm than good.

– ref. After 2 festival deaths, the NSW government rushed through a new drug homicide crime. But it may do more harm than good – http://theconversation.com/after-2-festival-deaths-the-nsw-government-rushed-through-a-new-drug-homicide-crime-but-it-may-do-more-harm-than-good-121876

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Dunk, Research Fellow, University of Sydney

Last week, one of the world’s leading medical journals declared the medical community must act now to limit the health effects of climate change.

In a stark editorial, readers of the New England Journal of Medicine were reminded that hospitals, even airconditioned and sterilised, are not protected from “the environmental chaos unfolding outside”.

The effects of climate change are “frighteningly broad”, the editorial continued, including risks to medical supply chains, health infrastructure and all aspects of human health.

The special issue represents an important new focus for the journal and for the medical community: protecting human health in a changing climate calls for urgent, dramatic climate action.

Read more: Climate explained: will we be less healthy because of climate change?

Our contribution shows how doctors have taken up planetary-scale issues in the past, and helped shift the course of history.

We show how, in the 20th century, doctors learned to apply environmental ethics to medicine, and to apply medicine to politics — and how these developments featured in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Nuclear war, not cardiac arrest, the threat

In the early 1960s, as nuclear arms proliferated, a group of doctors inspired by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Sir Philip Noel-Baker decided nuclear war, and not cardiac arrest, presented the greatest threat to human health.

Organising as Physicians for Social Responsibility, they published a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine describing the likely effects of a 20-megaton blast over Boston: death, injury, ecological damage, and profound disturbance to social structures.

Introducing the articles, the editor declared no group could be more interested in the prospect than physicians, since none were more committed to human health and survival.

Despite the threats to other species and natural systems, these articles emphasised the threat to human health.

Australian paediatrician Helen Caldicott revived the group in 1978 when she was working in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Together with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, its leaders helped educate doctors and concerned citizens worldwide about the dangers of nuclear war.

They showed the most significant threats to human health might lie outside the conventional realms of medicine, and to protect it, doctors might need to do more than practise medicine.

And they succeeded. Membership of Physicians for Social Responsibility grew rapidly, and the model was widely exported. Caldicott met with then US-President Ronald Reagan and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

The downsides of economic growth

Ecological education deepened across the 20th century, with increased awareness of the environmental impacts of post-war economic growth.

It was the mounting evidence of ozone depletion in the 1980s, however, which brought the lesson home. Humans were altering not only the face of the earth, but the composition of the stratosphere.

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by doctor and former Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, articulated the threats to the planet’s species and systems from human activities.

The Brundtland Report regretted the retreat of government and business from social and environmental concerns, and yet called for optimism. It advocated “sustainable development”, and concerted work towards a “common future” where ecological and economic issues were addressed together.

Others were less optimistic. As evidence of ecological collapse at a planetary scale gathered like storm clouds, doctors who had had their visions of health expanded by the nuclear threat took up their pens.

Alexander Leaf, a professor of preventive medicine at Harvard University and leading member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, was one. He was deeply concerned by the Brundtland Report and by how little had been written about the health implications of environmental change.

In 1989, encouraged by his friends Arnold Relman, the new editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, and doctor and researcher Marcia Angell, Leaf wrote an article for the journal about the likely effects of ozone depletion, air pollution and global warming.

Read more: Saving the ozone layer: why the Montreal Protocol worked

If the planet’s systems could not support explosive population growth and consumption habits, nor could human bodies, Leaf argued. The actual effects of global environmental changes might prove as catastrophic as the theoretical effects of nuclear war. What was the role of the doctor in dealing with these global environmental challenges, Leaf asked his colleagues.

With the end of the Cold War, Leaf and Harvard psychiatrist Eric Chivian, who founded the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard in 1993, prompted Physicians for Social Responsibility to develop an environmental program.

Yet many doctors proved reluctant to organise against environmental threats as they had against nuclear war.

Re-setting the research agenda

The Brundtland Report also helped produce a new research agenda. The first assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change addressed health effects, and in 1990, the World Health Organization and Australian National Health and Medical Research Council issued reports on the likely links between greenhouse gases and human health.

Andrew Haines, at the London School of Tropical Medicine, began writing about the health effects of climate change.

Read more: Heatwaves threaten Australians’ health, and our politicians aren’t doing enough about it

And in Australia, Anthony McMichael took up the cause. The “bottom line”, he suggested, was threats to human health (not deforestation or species extinctions) would drive human responses to environmental degradation.

As evidence grows of ever greater disruptions to natural systems, the broader medical community is once again taking action to protect human health in a planetary crisis.

Shifting the boundaries of medicine

Our research shows how the boundaries of medicine have shifted in the face of emerging threats, expanding to a planetary scale, to political advocacy, to new research directions and efforts to translate scientific evidence into powerful public messages.

It draws attention to the new ethical commitments realised in crises — commitments to current and future generations, other species, and to the planet itself.

Authors of the paper mentioned in the article are James Dunk, Warwick Anderson and Anthony Capon (University of Sydney) and David Jones (Harvard University).

– ref. How doctors convinced the world the planet was worth fighting for – http://theconversation.com/how-doctors-convinced-the-world-the-planet-was-worth-fighting-for-122190

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Goss, School Education Program Director, Grattan Institute

Australia’s young high achievers are turning their backs on teaching. They want to make a difference in their careers, and they are interested in teaching, but when it comes to the crunch they choose professions with better pay and more challenge.

This is not just a cultural problem – governments can and should do more to make teaching an attractive career for our best and brightest. If they don’t, we’ll feel it for generations to come.

A Grattan Institute survey of 950 young high achievers Australia-wide shows what might change their minds. In our new report, Attracting high achievers to teaching, we propose a reform package that would transform the teaching workforce within a decade.

Read more: Here’s how to support quality teaching, with the evidence to back it

Attracting high achievers

More high achievers in teaching would mean more student learning. International evidence shows teachers who are good learners themselves do a better a job in the classroom. One New York City initiative cut the achievement gap between the poorest and richest schools by a quarter simply by encouraging high achievers to become teachers in poorer schools.

But in Australia, demand from high achievers for teaching has steadily declined over the past 40 years. As top-end salaries for teachers became less competitive with other professions, fewer high achievers chose to teach.

Over the past decade, high-achiever enrolments in teaching courses fell by a third – more than for any other undergraduate field of study.

Today, only 3% of young high achievers choose teaching in their undergraduate studies, compared with 19% for science and 9% for engineering.

Better pay and more challenge

Our survey of young high achievers (aged 18-25 and with an ATAR of 80 or higher) found the best and brightest would take up teaching if it offered better top-end pay and greater career challenge.

This does not mean young people today are not altruistic. In fact, all higher achievers in our survey said they wanted to make a difference. But they thought they could do so in any number of better-paid careers.

High achievers’ big worry was that they would get stuck in the one classroom, doing the same thing over and over again. They knew teaching is a tough job, but they wanted greater intellectual challenge and “the ability to move forward”. As one respondent told us:

It feels like teachers don’t have a clearly defined career progression path.

High achievers also know that teaching falls short on pay. They estimated that by the time they reached the top of their chosen career, they would be earning A$142,000 a year. That’s a very achievable goal in fields like law, engineering, and commerce. But for teachers, that sort of salary is only a very remote possibility.

How to reform the teaching workforce

We propose a $1.6 billion reform package for government schools to double the number of high achievers choosing teaching within a decade. The reform package would lift the average ATAR of teaching graduates from 74 to 85, and when fully implemented would give the typical Australian student an extra six to 12 months of learning by Year 9.

The package has three key components.

First, offer $10,000-a-year cash-in-hand scholarships to high achievers to study teaching, a fast and cheap reform.

Second, make career pathways more challenging, by offering new roles with much higher pay and significantly more responsibilities. About 5-to-8% of teachers would become Instructional Specialists, responsible for helping all other teachers in their school to improve, and paid around $140,000 each year – $40,000 more than the highest standard pay rate for teachers.

About 0.5% of teachers would become Master Teachers, responsible for improving the quality of teaching in their region, and paid around $180,000 a year – $80,000 more than the highest standard teacher pay.

Third, run a $20 million-a-year marketing campaign, similar to the Australian Defence Force recruitment campaigns, to promote the new package and re-position teaching as a challenging and well-paid career option for high achievers.

The reforms package will help current teachers too. All teachers benefit if there are better opportunities for career progression, higher pay and new dedicated roles that help teachers develop and improve.

The package would costs $620 per government school student per year, or $1.6 billion across the country. It’s not cheap, but it is affordable – and ultimately it would pay for itself many times over in improved educational outcomes for future generations.

Read more: Expert panel: what makes a good teacher

– ref. Better pay and more challenge: here’s how to get our top students to become teachers – http://theconversation.com/better-pay-and-more-challenge-heres-how-to-get-our-top-students-to-become-teachers-122271

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash University

Since 2000, planning authorities in Australia have overseen a massive rezoning of inner-city industrial land to make way for mixed-use residential development. They claim central industrial space is obsolete in a post-industrial economy driven by knowledge, finance, and real estate. And rezoning offers opportunities to house people near jobs and services, thereby slowing urban sprawl.

While industrial rezonings have contributed to the densification of Australian cities, they also open the door to real estate speculation and accelerate gentrification. This has forced many people to move outward in search of affordable shelter.

Read more: Density, sprawl, growth: how Australian cities have changed in the last 30 years

Rather than fostering walkable 20-minute neighbourhoods, “ghost shops” haunt many new mixed-use residential developments. And sprawl continues unabated.

Other problems stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of contemporary manufacturing. The loss of central industrial zones displaces a range of specialised manufacturers, creative producers, and small businesses. With them go the quality jobs and vital services they provide. In the process, the diversity of land uses and jobs is reduced in the very places that policymakers want it.

Can urban policy make room for manufacturing and create real diversity and a mix of employment opportunities in our cities?

Australian manufacturing misunderstood

Manufacturing employment has declined for decades. This is typically attributed to competition from low-wage countries. In reality, Australian manufacturing is changing and is largely distinct from overseas high-volume, low-cost mass production. Urban policy and an outdated vision of manufacturing are as much to blame for the loss of central industrial land.

Today, Australian manufacturing is small, nimble, and specialised. Firms with fewer than 20 people provide 93% of all manufacturing employment. And most firms (74%) have fewer than five employees.

These businesses are not pumping out automobiles or anoraks. They are more likely to engage in small-batch production of high-value-added and design-intensive products.

Much of this production is directly linked to the cultural industries, such as architecture, fashion and home furnishings, and is geared toward local consumption, particularly food and beverages. Combined, these forms of production account for about half of all manufacturing employment.

Read more: Can our cities’ thriving creative precincts be saved from ‘renewal’?

Yes, manufacturing does not provide as many jobs as it once did. Yet it remains crucial to a diversified economy.

Contemporary manufacturing thrives among the dense networks and consumer markets found in cities. Or it would, if we did not rezone all of our central city industrial land. The decline in manufacturing employment over the past 20 years coincides with major industrial rezonings.

Despite a net increase in industrial land due to outer suburban expansions, Greater Melbourne lost 2,423 hectares (or nearly 19 Hoddle grids) since 2000-01. These were mostly small industrial pockets (less than 5 hectares) in the inner suburbs. The few that remain have no vacancies.

Sydney has virtually no inner industrial land left. This follows years of industrial rezonings at the hands of major property developers.

Property speculation designs out mixed-use activity

Indeed, industrial rezonings have arisen less from an obsolescence of manufacturing than from opportunistic targeting of higher-return land uses. Two-thirds of Melbourne’s industrial land was rezoned to promote residential development or other mixed use that does not permit industrial activity.

That leads to an immediate rise in property values and, of course, speculative investment. An infamous example in Victoria is then planning minister Matthew Guy’s 2012 rezoning of 250 hectares) of central Melbourne industrial land at Fishermans Bend for a high-density mixed-use precinct. But this is a global phenomenon.

Paradoxically, while mixed use is the planner’s holy grail, many new mixed-use projects do not foster the dense and walkable neighbourhoods they seek. Most are simply “shop-top” apartments with nominal ground-floor retail, not a diverse mix of uses. Meanwhile, retail vacancies are on the rise – nearly 40% in some suburbs.

While some mixed-use projects include office space, rarely do they incorporate multiple forms of work space. This means they do not support a rich business mix. Nor do they help solve the challenge of affordable housing, because an increase in housing supply does not guarantee lower prices.

Read more: Affordable housing policy failure still being fuelled by flawed analysis

For these reasons, zoning out employment land in the central city may not be “the highest and best use”. Even in a post-industrial economy, we need urban industrial zones that provide flexible work spaces, incubate new creative activities, allow for maintenance and repair and, above all, temper market rents for firms that provide quality, essential jobs and services.

How to renew inner-city industry

Inner-city industrial land is at capacity. If urban policymakers do not confront the legacy of industrial rezonings, they risk compounding problems in housing, jobs and retail. That, in turn, will further homogenise our cities and worsen inequality.

We can tackle the problem in three ways:

1. Preserve inner and middle industrial zones

To support a critical mass of enterprises would require no longer treating industrial lands as an opportunity for speculative housing and mixed-use activity. Tenure security for hundreds of micro-enterprises encourages local entrepreneurialism, in contrast to the part-time, low-wage jobs that generic chains bring to mixed-use projects.

US cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee and Portland have long maintained central “industrial sanctuaries” that prohibit residential development.

2. Develop alternative mixed-use zoning

Current mixed-use zoning primarily creates residential development and assumes manufacturing is incompatible. In fact, there are important spatial interdependencies between manufacturing and creative industries.

Melbourne, Portland, San Francisco, and Vancouver have implemented new zoning designations intended to accommodate this mix. This is a positive step, but uptake of measures like the Commercial 3 Zone in Melbourne has been slow.

3. Add new inner-city industrial space

Consumers want direct relationships with makers. Rising land prices and the changing size and scope of manufacturing today means there is potential to add industrial to commercial and even residential redevelopments, via cross-subsidy incentives. Empty shop-top retail could be carefully retrofitted for creative and small manufacturing, with new building codes that enable alternative low-impact, ground-floor uses.

Join us at the Festival of Urbanism in Melbourne on September 4 to explore these issues.

– ref. Three ways to fix the problems caused by rezoning inner-city industrial land for mixed-use apartments – http://theconversation.com/three-ways-to-fix-the-problems-caused-by-rezoning-inner-city-industrial-land-for-mixed-use-apartments-121566

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Owen, PhD Candidate, Monash University

Last week, menstrual pad brand Libra launched their Blood Normal commercial in Australia, running it during prime time television shows including The Bachelor, The Project, and Gogglebox. Australia is a little late to the party: Blood Normal first ran in the UK and Europe in October 2017 and won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2018 for its de-stigmatised depiction of menstruation.

Breaking new ground in menstrual product advertising terms, the ad has received most attention for showing menstrual blood as red and on the inside of a woman’s thigh, rather than as the bizarre blue liquid we’ve seen for decades being squirted onto a pad by someone in a lab coat.

Busting period stigmas

The ad bombards us with a rapid fire array of stigma-busting micro-dramas featuring fashionable young people (some of whom are well-known European cultural influencers). A hip boyfriend (Swedish fashion blogger Julian Hernandez) buys pads in the local supermarket; a young woman (French activist Victoire Dauxerre) stands up and asks “Does anyone have a pad?” across a dinner table of hipsters; a university student walks into a public toilet carrying a wrapped pad openly in her hand; a woman’s fingers type: “I am having a very heavy period and will be working from home today”.

Unpacking the ad reveals a combination of the old and the new in menstruation ad-land. There is the tired old trope of the menstruating woman engaging in boisterous and fun physical activity, echoing the freedom message of women dressed in (improbable) white, riding horses and motorbikes in ads from the 1960s on.

In Blood Normal though, the notion that a menstruating woman can do anything is taken into more intimate territory, with a scene of a couple having (gentle) period sex. A woman shown at the swimming pool looks serene and thoughtful, more as if she is taking time out for self-care than trying to prove menstruation doesn’t make any difference in her life and that she is as non-cyclical as a man.

The modern-day stance that menstruation should be suppressed emerged from the second wave feminist need to assert women’s equal rights within a still-masculinised world.

Where Blood Normal really breaks ground is by presenting all the moods and moments of the menstrual experience, including the pain and the turning inward. It also does a brilliant job of showing the sweetness of getting and giving support within a sisterhood and brotherhood, in an idealised setting in which everyone is menstrually-aware.

This vision may be nearer than we might think: the characters in Blood Normal are in their teens and 20s and recent reports indicate this generation is rapidly shifting in terms of menstrual norms. Young women are reporting much higher interest in menstrual cycle awareness and it is now one of the “biggest wellness trends”.

In Australia, talkback radio reflected this shift, picking up on suggestions of menstrual leave. Celebrity Yumi Styne’s book for first-time menstruators Welcome to Your Period was published this month.

Menstruation is big business

Despite this ad being touted by its makers as a public service, we cannot forget the corporate profit-driven self-interest involved in menstrual product ad construction. Recent valuations of the “global feminine hygiene product” market (of which around 50% is menstrual pads), vary from US$20.6 billion (A$30.5 billion) to US$37.5 billion (A$55.5 billion), with projections of US$52 billion (A$77 billion) by 2023.

High profit margins along with environmental devastation are contained within those figures. Disposable products use up resources, clog landfill sites, and pollute oceans. In the past, manufacturers have been less than honest about product safety, such as in the infamous Rely tampon Toxic Shock Syndrome scandal.
Menstrual product advertising has been shown to increase self-objectification and has cynically exploited and added to anxiety surrounding leaks and smells.

There’s a massive gulf between the sweet and loving world of the Libra ad and the uncomfortable reality of the disposable menstrual product industry.

More work to do

So, why now? Why has it taken the disposable menstrual product industry almost a hundred years to talk about menstruation as normal and in terms that actually match lived experience, rather than as an unspeakable problem that their products will absorb and conceal, allowing the menstruator to “pass” as a non-menstruator.

The answer partly lies in the process of cultural change: things take time, and menstrual stigma was a big chunk of patriarchal power relations for feminism to tackle. It also lies in the influence of the new “femtech”: new cycle tracking apps, and reusable pads, period underwear, and menstrual cups made using new technologies. These innovations are reshaping menstrual experience in ways that disrupt self-objectification based on stigma, while replacing it with new forms of control through data collection.

Blood Normal is a great ad campaign, and yes, menstrual stigma is being dismantled. But we’re not there yet. When all women have access to reusable, sustainable menstrual products; when menstrual self-care becomes a cultural norm in homes, schools and workplaces; when women feel free not only to jump around when bleeding, but to live with the cycle rather than against or in spite of it … then we’ll be there.

– ref. Does anyone have a pad? TV is finally dismantling the period taboo – http://theconversation.com/does-anyone-have-a-pad-tv-is-finally-dismantling-the-period-taboo-122258